Nightblade IV: Book Three - Viper's Eclipse
by KnightEstoc
Summary: The Underworld is a wonder of engineering, with NPCs that are actually human. But no matter what, nothing's going to stop me from finding Kirito and getting him out of this place. Even if I have to challenge the world to do it.
1. Awakening

**Just as a friendly heads-up, this is Book 3 of Nightblade IV. You might have missed the first two Books, as they were hidden in the crossover section. It's suggested that you go read them, but you also have the option of checking out the Author's Note of this chapter, where I'll toss a very brief overview.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

The bus drove away from Kunugigaoka Junior High, purring along. It felt like an ending, finally. The end of my time with Kunugigaoka Junior High. The end of my time with Class 3-E. And... the end of my time with Korosensei.

I settled back and closed my eyes, letting the exhaustion I'd been hiding wash over me. As I fell asleep, I saw a bright light envelop me...

...as I was logged out of the world.

...

...

...

...I opened my eyes.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Awakening**

**March 19th, 379 HE**

Then, I immediately closed them again and groaned. Too bright... My eyes hadn't adjusted to whatever source of light had been shining at me, so I'd experienced stabbing pain straight into my eyeballs. Ow. Well, I can tell by the light shining through my eyelids that they'll adjust eventually given the time, so I can take the time to wait a little bit.

The brief moment of sight I'd had before light decided to do something rude and unspeakable to my vision had been entirely over-exposed, so all I remembered was a brief flash of white. Well, I'm not going anywhere until I can see, so I might as well try to focus and figure out where I am.

Hmm... If I can't use vision, then I'll use my other senses. I could feel a warmth on my face and body; I was propped up against something hard behind me. A wall, maybe? No, it feels too irregular to be a wall. It's probably a tree trunk or a rock, nothing man-made. By listening carefully, I could hear the slight rustle of leaves in the breeze that lightly ruffled my hair, so that confirmed my suspicions that I was outside. I could also hear something else, a sound that reminded me of a secluded area in a forest...

A flowing river, my mind supplied, even through the haze that clouded my memories. I couldn't remember what I'd been doing before waking up, but when I focused I could make out a few pictures here and there. A wooden classroom, at the top of a hill... A yellow blur, something that made my heart fill with nostalgic warmth when I thought about it...

I carefully opened my eyes, pretty sure that I'd given them enough time to not get murdered by the sunlight - because I had to be sitting out in the open, the sun overhead - and hissed in irritation when light stabbed them again. Despite the adjustment period, it was still incredibly bright. At this point, I could at least _see_, so progress was being made. I lifted my hand and shielded my eyes with my forearm, finally getting enough of a reprieve that the light didn't make me squeeze my eyes shut again for the third time. Slowly, my eyes adjusted, and I could finally start making out my surroundings instead of just seeing black and white shapes that didn't make any sense.

Really weird, how my eyes just don't work well sometimes. That's why I wear glasses.

Speaking of my glasses, I was clearly not wearing them, for whatever reason, or my lenses would have darkened from the exposure to the sunlight. What I _was_ wearing was a simple reddish tunic, some pants, and a pair of comfortable boots. They were all well-made but simplistic, as if a talented rural tailor had made them for me. In the end, it didn't matter, just wasted my time while I waited for my eyes to adjust. Now, where was I? Without looking around, I could see pretty far; tree branches reached out above me in a failed to provide me with a little shade. I was sitting at the top of a hill, and a gently sloping hill ran down to a river, the source of the water I'd heard with my eyes closed. The grass was emerald green and the sky above me was the kind of clear blue that made me feel like I was falling into it. Coupled with fluffy white clouds, it felt a lot like... well, a perfect imagining of the countryside.

"Arcadia, huh...?" I murmured. This really did feel like the utopia, especially with the line of trees on the other side of the river. "Well, worse places to wake up." I pushed myself to my feet and swayed a little bit. I'd been sleeping for a while, it seemed, because my legs wobbled and my head swam. Fortunately, I had this nice big firm tree to rest against, so I took a few deep breaths until the world decided to stop spinning. After I could see straight and the tunnel vision went away, I took a few cautious steps down the hill towards the river. My legs decided that they were going to cooperate a little bit, though my first few steps felt awkward and gangly for some reason.

I still felt stiff as I knelt down, though rolling my neck earned me a few satisfying pops as my vertebrae realigned themselves. I raised my arms over my head and sighed with relief when cracks and pops ran down my spine. "Much better," I said. After kneeling down and splashing some of the ice-cold water on my face, I sat back on the edge of the river and stared out at the forest.

I can see without my glasses... Enough of my memories had stayed with me that I remembered the conversation with Shino, Asuna, and Kazuto back at the Dicey Cafe. I also remembered nearly dying after being injected with succinylcholine by Johnny Black, but the time between passing out on the street and waking up under the budding trees was a blur. It felt like something important had happened... And as the mists in my head cleared, I felt a pang of sadness. Korosensei had... He'd died, by our hands, lying in the back of E Class.

Even though my heart felt a little heavy, I didn't so much as tear up. I'd already mourned for Korosensei, the night we'd killed him. I'll miss him, but in the end I can't let myself get hung up on the past. I gathered my feet under me and pushed myself up, groaning. Still stiff, yep. Fortunately, with my memories of E Class came memories of stretches, so I was able to run through a quick five-minute routine and work out the kinks. In the process, I'd figured out why I'd felt unused to my body, despite training as an assassin for a year - my youth from E Class had disappeared, and I was back to my usual age.

Now that my body was feeling limber again, I -

"Mmnnn..."

...That's not my voice moaning. It came from behind me and to the right, and I turned cautiously to see who else was nearby. I didn't expect anyone to be here with me; Asuna and Kana should be safely in RATH, and while they might try to join in I don't think they would. One or both of them would have stayed with me in E Class if they could have. My hand dropped to my belt where a dagger was always sheathed in E Class, but naturally closed on air. "Tch." Irritating. I wish I had a weapon -

\- to confront the girl my age, sitting up and sleepily rubbing her eyes. I stared in amazement. She was wearing a simple linen dress that was mostly grey with a few white highlights near the collar. There was a nice red ribbon tied around her neck in a loose bow, but other than that it all looked like casual clothing a cute girl might wear in ALO. What was _really_ striking was her purple hair; it was mostly short, except for two long twin-tails that fell down her back to her waist. She stared up at me through her bangs, her blue eyes meeting my grey ones, and after a second her eyes widened to match mine.

Of course I was surprised. I was staring at Ritsu... except she was older, my age at least, and _human_.

Ritsu was one of my classmates back at Kunugigaoka; she sat directly to my left in class. Or, well, 'sat' in the loosest sense of the term, because Ritsu's name was actually short for Autonomous Intelligence Fixed Artillery. The last time I'd seen her, she was an artificial intelligence, newly created for the sole purpose of killing Korosensei as a trial run for combat-ready AI. Even putting the issue of recursion aside, her core program was housed in a huge console. We'd only been able to interact with her by talking, either with her main self or the mobile version that she'd downloaded to our phones. ...Which I don't have on me, son of a -

Ahem. That's besides the point. Why is Ritsu here?! Why is Ritsu human?! Why is she _nineteen_!?

"...Ritsu?" I asked cautiously.

Her eyes shone. "Nick!" she exclaimed. Still propped up by her hands, she tried to scramble forward. Her movements seemed clumsy, like she wasn't used to moving - of course she's not used to moving around she's an AI and why would I expect her to _whoops_ she's falling over. Ritsu had dragged her legs a little bit, but in her rush to crawl towards me she'd failed to move fast enough. Naturally, she'd nearly fallen over, letting out a cute little, "Eep!" before she fell into my waiting arms.

"Careful there, Ritsu," I said. I didn't know how she was here, but I didn't want her to hurt herself. "Take it easy, you might be a little disoriented."

"I missed you!" she exclaimed, burying her face in my chest. "I missed you so much. It's been three years, and I've finally found you..."

Three years... It seems like time's passed differently for the two of us. "Has it really been that long?" I asked almost rhetorically. "Sorry you had to wait that long, Ritsu." Even if it had only been a timeless moment for me, it had been three years for her. I'd nearly gone mad being separated from Kana and my family for only a few months. Three years... At least she had the rest of E Class with her.

"You're here, so it's okay," Ritsu sniffled. "...Where _is_ here, by the way?"

I couldn't help it, I chuckled. "Come on, where's your situational awareness? Did you sleep through that class?"

Ritsu pulled back to pout at me. It was strangely dangerous to look at... "Don't tease me, Nick!" Then she blinked and tilted her head. "You look... different..."

"Probably because I'm three years older. This is what I really look like, in the real world."

"So this is the real you..." Ritsu reached out with her hand, and then her eyes widened again. She stared at the back of her hand in what looked like amazement and wonder, and then looked down at her body. She let out a cute yelp and start patting herself down, running her hands up and down her sides. "Wh-wh-what is this? This isn't my avatar! And it feels weird! I-I'm dreaming, right?" She tugged at her cheek, probably in an attempt to wake herself up from whatever dream she thought she was having, and yelped again, this time in mild pain. "Ouch!"

I reached out and placed my hand on her head, tousling her hair. "Alright, remember Karasuma's lessons, Ritsu. Just chill, okay? I'll explain what I can."

Once she calmed down a bit, I sat down down next to her. "So what's going on, Nick?" she asked me.

I smiled at her. "Well, I never really got to answer your first question." I spread out my arms and gestured to the huge vista in front of us. "Welcome to the Underworld, Ritsu."

"The Underworld... You mean, that other simulation? The one your... brother is in?"

"Bingo!" I tilted my head. Even if I couldn't mimic Korosensei's signature gameshow buzzer at the successful answer, it felt right to move my body like this. Ahh, I'm glad I'm back in my original body! "You remember Kana and Asuna, right?"

Ritsu stared at the grass around her. "How could I forget?" she asked.

"Well, I asked them to try to get Agent Kikuoka to move me to this area once I graduated from E Class," I said. Hmm, the breeze on my face feels nice. It played with Ritsu's bangs and ruffled her hair, even after she fixed it. I hid a smile - she's not very used to being human and not having her entire world under her control, huh? "Looks like they succeeded."

"That's good," she said. She giggled. "So why am I here? Did you ask for me to join you?"

I shrugged helplessly. "Kana and Asuna probably wanted someone to help me. Man, I wish they'd trust I could handle myself..." No, they know I'm capable. If anything, they probably just wanted someone to be with me in case I needed help. They always were telling me I should rely on others more, huh. "Oh well. I'm glad you're here with me, Ritsu," I said, and smiled at her.

Her eyes widened and she ducked her head before I could do more than see her start to return the smile. Uh, Ritsu? Are you okay? "This body is weird," she muttered. "It just does what it wants."

"Well, see," I said with a teasing grin, "that's because _you_ always had your machines do the heavy lifting for you. You never had to join in any of our conditioning."

"Oh, shut up," Ritsu said and giggled before looking at me and frowning. "I had my own problems too! Trying to sort through all the data I got on a daily basis was hard, you know!"

I'm just glad she's looking at me again. She's been acting weird, not like the Ritsu I knew in E Class. Then again, that's probably because she's not used to this body. When the silence between the two of us stretched a little longer and Ritsu growled under her breath playfully, I chuckled and nodded. "Right, right, sorry," I said. "You're right, you worked just as hard as the rest of us."

"And don't you forget it!"

I stood up and stretched, rolling my shoulders and humming in satisfaction. "Any other questions before we get going, Ritsu?"

"Get going?" Ritsu blinked. "Oh! To find shelter, since we don't want to be out in the woods all alone!"

"Yep." We didn't have weapons, and while I could probably defend myself against bandits I wasn't quite sure how I'd fare against wild animals. I don't know much about the rules of the Underworld, but it feels a _little_ bit closer to VR than the E Class simulation. Martial arts would probably be _useful_, but not as deadly as they could be. Plus, I'd like to find somewhere safe to sleep for the night. Camping out is fun, but we have no equipment, and don't know anything about the land. "Ready to go?"

Ritsu smiled up at me. I extended my hand, and she placed hers in it. A series of complicated expressions flashed across her face before she tugged, pulling herself to her feet. "Let's go, Nick!"

...

Okay, so walking through the woods is a pain. I never really understood how nice it was to have military-grade equipment for clothing when I went out in the forest before I had my rough cloth snag on branches and twigs multiple times. At least I was used to moving around, and I was back to my usual smooth movement after about ten minutes or so. Not having to worry about my immediate surroundings meant that I could relax a bit; I was able to actually listen to my environment instead of just focusing on myself and my personal space. I could hear the wind blowing through the trees and the repeated chirping of insects. It was exactly like walking through the forest of Aincrad on the 22nd Floor, which made sense given this was a virtual world.

I could also hear another feminine sigh from right behind me. "Need help, Ritsu?" I called back over my shoulder.

"I'm a member of E Class too!" Ritsu exclaimed. "Just because I'm not used to this body..."

I grinned without looking back. I didn't want her to think that I'm getting _too_ much enjoyment out of her suffering. I mean, I'm getting some. But not too much. She's my precious friend, after all. "When we find a town, I'll see if we can barter for a hairbrush or something. You'll probably need it to get all that forest you're bringing with you out of your hair."

"Don't be a jerk," Ritsu huffed. I snickered at her, but the banter did bring to mind another problem I was trying to avoid thinking about.

Namely, money. We have exactly zero cash, gold, col, yrd, or whatever we need to pay for things. If we're lucky, we can barter for things or do emergency hunts. If we're not lucky, well... I'm sure there's some people out there in whatever village we find that have a _little_ bit too much free cash. I'm not above stealing, though I'll try to do it when Ritsu's not looking.

"This forest is really pretty though," Ritsu said when she caught up to me. Her hair was a little tangled, but nowhere near as bad as I'd been teasing her about. Just a few twigs and leaves. She was still cute enough. "It's so different from experiencing things through a camera. The feeling of the sun, and feeling my body move... It's so wonderful!"

"Glad you're enjoying yourself," I said. "Though we should really start to hurry." I glanced up at the sky. It was still nice and blue, but the sun was starting to lower towards the horizon at our backs. "We've been following this river downstream for a while now."

Ritsu shook her head. "Korosensei taught us what we should do if we're lost in the woods during summer vacation, remember?"

"You're the one that still remembers all of his summer handbook," I said. Seriously, she has all those massive tomes memorized along with every creation schematic she'd used in E Class, even if she didn't have access to the plastic she used to generate the guns. "It's not like I could just download it into my brain or something."

"Bleh." Ritsu stuck her tongue out at me. "But we're supposed to follow the river downstream, that's the best way to find people. That's what he said!"

"I also vaguely remember something about staying in one place if we're lost in the forest, Ritsu."

"Yeah but that's only if people are going to be looking for us." Ritsu waved a finger in the air. "Page 492 told us that, and statistics on the following three pages supported all the evidence."

"Y'know, you were a lot easier to ignore when I could just mute my phone and put it in my pocket."

Ritsu giggled. "You know you like talking to me. Or you wouldn't be smiling right now!" I just rolled my eyes, but didn't bother trying to hide the grin on my face. She was right, we both knew it; I was just being petulant for the sake of playing around and being petulant. "If we keep going this way I'm sure we'll find a village, or a town, or something!"

I rolled my eyes. "I'll double-check, but there wasn't anything for a while." I bounced on the balls of my feet for a second and then kicked forward, running towards a tree. My body felt strangely heavy and when I jumped at the nearest tree, reaching for the lowest branch, I nearly missed the first shot when I didn't jump as high as I expected. My hand still managed to snag the branch though, and I mostly stifled the grunt when I hit the trunk. Ritsu's giggling didn't help. "Oh shut up, I haven't trained this body properly," I grumbled.

"I didn't say anything at all, Nick!"

"Yeah but you were thinking it!"

Once I was up in the tree branches, they were thick enough that I was able to swarm up to the top of the trunk pretty easily. I stood on top of one of the branches, balancing my weight so that the branch didn't bend or sway, and peered around. We'd been following the river the whole time after I'd climbed the tree we woke up under and saw nothing in any direction, but that had been a while ago. It was possible that... My eyes narrowed. It's a good thing I don't need glasses in _this_ world and everything I saw was perfectly crisp, or I might have missed it; in the distance, almost like the top of another tree, I could see the tip of a spire. It was _definitely_ man-made, the way it reflected the light.

I dropped from the tree without thinking about it, and tucked into a roll neatly to bleed off momentum. My lessons in parkour from Karasuma were still valid, even if this body wasn't conditioned the way I'd really like. "Did you find something?"

"Yeah, it's a little bit further downriver. Don't say anything," I grumbled when Ritsu's face lit up and she smiled. "I get it, you were right. I could see a grey circular spire poking out over the treeline, and I don't think that's a natural occurrence."

"Seven point two-five percent chance it occurs naturally, with an additional five point three percent chance it's the result of previous human action before they left the area," Ritsu said immediately. I stared at her flatly and she giggled. "Don't worry, I totally made those up!"

"Somehow I guessed that," I said flatly. She's not a super-computer anymore, she's the same as me. Those kinds of probabilities couldn't be calculated that quickly on her own. "Now let's go. You've had a few hours to get used to your new body, so we're gonna pick up the pace."

Ritsu sighed, but didn't complain. I could tell that the news that we were on the right track and en route to find some sort of theoretical civilization had buoyed her spirits, same as it had mine. If Ritsu and I were more used to our bodies, I would have wanted to take the trees instead of walking; they're harder to move around, but in a forest this thick I'd definitely be able to cover ground faster. Then again, Ritsu... She was good at adapting to her environment, so she was able to keep up with me after a bit, but there was no way she could run through the tree branches. I glanced over my shoulder at where she was several steps behind me, dogged determination on her face.

I grinned to myself and turned around again, doing my best to pick out the route that would be the fastest but also make it easiest for Ritsu to keep up.

While we were walking, a melodic chime echoed through the forest, coming from the direction we were going. It was a good sign that we were heading in the right direction since, well. It was definitely man-made. As we got closer to whatever I'd seen in the distance, I could see little signs of human life. There were dirt paths cleared through the forest that let us pick up the pace, mostly. As well, there were fruit-bearing trees that had most of the lower fruits plucked; that didn't really mean anything by itself, but the fruits higher up were still there and there wasn't anything rotting on the ground. Plus, the edge of the forest was abrupt rather than thinning out naturally.

Another little sign of human life was the massive stone wall rising up in front of us. Just a small hint that people lived here. "Whoa," Ritsu breathed.

"Guess we're on the right track." I grinned at her. "Well, it's a wall, there's gotta be an entrance somewhere, right?

As we circled around, I couldn't help but notice that there wasn't any farmland anywhere, despite the height of the wall and the length of time we'd been following the wall without seeing an entrance. The place inside must import most of their food, since as far as I was aware the Underworld was supposed to be an agricultural world. And that meant...

"Found it!" Ritsu cheered as I stepped onto a wide cobblestone path, and she jumped with both feet from the grass to the hard stone. It was well-worn, the bricks faded from what looked like plenty of sunlight and use. "I hope the townsfolk are friendly."

I shrugged. "We'll find out. How are you holding up?"

"My feet hurt."

"That's normal. Welcome to a regular flesh body," I said drily.

Ritsu pouted, a dangerous expression now that she was my age. "You could offer to carry me on your back!"

I grinned, but didn't move to crouch down or pick her up or anything. "I actually might, if I had the strength from Karasuma's training right now. As things stand, we're roughly on the same level. Unless you want to carry me?"

"Nick!"

I laughed cheerfully at her yelp. If she can pout like that, then that's good.

...

As we approached the entrance to the city, two men flanking the large archway stepped forward. Guards, probably, given the sheathed swords on their hips. "You two, please stop for a moment," the one on the right said. "Where did you come from?"

"Nick, what do we do..." Ritsu whispered.

"We'll be fine," I told her. Then I grinned at the guards. "We came from the forest that way." I pointed off into the woods we'd come from.

The man on the left frowned. "The forest? You mean... from Erith?"

"No, the forest." I shrugged. "When we woke up, we were lying on the grass along the river. No idea how we got there, but it took about an hour of following the river before we saw the city."

The two men exchanged glances, and then their shoulders relaxed. I grinned faintly. Looks like they believed us, for whatever reason. "You two really don't remember anything?" the first man asked.

Ritsu and I shook our heads. "Nope," I added. "Just our names. Ritsu, and Rythin."

"Rythin?" Ritsu muttered.

"Heh," Guard 1 laughed. "Two Lost Children of Vecta. I never thought I'd meet one, let alone two on the same day."

"Lost Children of Vecta?" Ritsu asked.

Guard 2 raised an eyebrow. "That's what they're called wherever you two come from, aren't they?" he asked. "When someone disappears from the city or village and turns up in a forest or field. A Lost Child of Vecta. The Dark God Vecta is a fan of pranking us humans by snatching us up, stealing our memories, and dropping them somewhere far from their home."

"Oh, right. Sorry, we don't remember much of anything at all... but that definitely rings a bell." The lie flowed smoothly from my lips. "Anyway, we're kinda in a bit of a situation here... The Dark God must have stolen our money too, because we don't have anything. Is there anything we can do, or..."

The guard nodded. "There's still time in the day. Do either of you remember your Callings?" Ritsu and I shook our heads. It's probably something like a job, if I had to guess. "I didn't think so. You seem... thin, boy, but you might be able to find some work in the city to earn some coins. Girl, you'd better go to the church and explain your situation. If your friend can't earn enough to cover the inn fee, then I'm sure the Axiom Church will be able to lend you beds for the night."

"Thank you very much," Ritsu said with a polite bow. "We'll do that."

The two guards nodded. "And welcome to the city of Veshire."

Veshire, huh? As we walked around, I glanced at our surroundings. The buildings were made from a grey brick, the same as the cobblestone path outside and the pavement we were walking on now. The roofs were all some sort of grey slate or something like that. I couldn't be certain, since I wasn't an expert on building materials. There were a couple townsfolk walking around down the streets, but most of them seemed to be on one errand or another so they barely gave us a second glance.

"Rythin?" Ritsu finally asked.

"Huh? Oh, the name I gave them." I shrugged. "If we're looking for Kazuto, it'll catch his attention way faster if he somehow hears about me. Moreso than Nick, anyway. Same with him. If he's realized this is the Underworld like I expect, he's probably going by Kirito. His avatar name."

Ritsu blinked. "Oh, that makes sense." She giggled. "I was a little surprised when you just said it right away."

"Heh. I've used it for a long time, so it's just as much my name as Nick." I stretched. "Well, the day isn't getting _shorter_, so we should probably split up. Where do you want to meet?"

"The church is a good landmark," Ritsu said. "I can see it from here, so I think it'll be okay if we meet there before it gets dark."

"Sounds good, Ritsu. See you... in a couple hours, I guess."

Just before we split up, another melody played through the air. The bells tolled for a few seconds before fading away. "We heard those in the forest, didn't we?" Ritsu said. "The melody was different this time."

"Mm-hmm. But I'm pretty sure it was about an hour between chimes. And come to think of it..." I looked around. "I haven't seen a clock anywhere. You'd think that a city this big would at least have a clocktower, let alone street clocks."

Ritsu nodded. "That is strange... Then, in two melodies, we meet up at the church, okay?"

"Sounds good. No promises on finding a part-time job, though." Bleh. Work sucks.

"Good luck anyway," Ritsu said.

* * *

The sun had cast the cobblestone in orange light by the time I sighed and finally admitted defeat. No matter who I talked to, they were either busy or had no time for a nineteen-year-old kid. At least everyone accepted that I was one of those Lost Vecta Kids or whatever when I explained my situation. I'd even been given a few bronze coins out of pity or charity or something. Apparently it would be enough to buy a few things of bread early in the morning, when the bakery only had day-old bread. That sounded... less than appealing, but food was food. It even gave me nostalgic memories of the old black bread Kirito and I used to buy on the first Floor of Aincrad.

That aside, despite the pity or charity the people I'd talked to had shown, I hadn't managed to secure a job. Sure, we were set for one meal, but that was only dinner or breakfast. Our assassin training hadn't really trained us for skipping meals; Korosensei would always make sure we had a break for lunch. 'A healthy meal for healthy minds and healthy bodies! Then you can put those to work trying to kill me, nue-heh-heh-heh!'

I smiled wryly. I miss Korosensei. Though, the ache I feel when I think of his loss is a little bit muted. Maybe because I'd been one of the ones to kill him? Who knows.

Hmm... My course of action is set in stone, then. I'll use these coins to buy some food for me and Ritsu to eat for dinner, and then we'll hopefully be able to spend the night at the church. And then, I'll go, er... liberate some funds for the two of us. There was an opulently-decorated house with statues that was at _least_ twice the size of the second-largest building in the city that I'd seen, and I could tell. That right there was someone with too much money.

Sure, it felt a _little_ off for me to steal from someone here, but on the other hand, they wouldn't miss a few coins. Just enough for me to buy Ritsu breakfast and then I'd do my best to find an actual paying job for lunch and dinner. I apologize in advance. Who knows? I might even go back and repay my unwitting donor for their 'kindness'.

Either way. I'm not going to get too hung up on it. As I approached the church, I saw Ritsu standing outside. When she saw me, her eyes brightened. "Ni- Rythin, did you have any luck?"

"Good to see you again too, Ritsu," I teased the girl. "I missed you too, that's so sweet of you to say that when we've only been apart for a few hours." She wrinkled her nose at me and folded her arms across her chest. Idly noting that puberty had been kind to her, I shook my head. "Sorry, no luck today. But I did get a few donations, so we can get something to eat for dinner and breakfast tomorrow. No idea what we're doing for lunch, though, and even if we did without food entirely it wouldn't be enough for two inn rooms."

"That wasn't funny," she muttered. "Stop teasing me."

"Sorry, sorry."

"Anyway," she shook her head, "I talked to the sister in charge of the church, and we'll be able to stay the night for as long as it takes! Plus, they said I could help out around the church and they'd pay me a small wage, so that's enough for us to afford food."

I grinned. "Great! Now, if only I were as useful."

"Don't say things like that!"

I laughed while the two of us headed out to find a cheap bakery. The food we managed to get didn't look like much, and a cautious bite showed me it tasted like it looked, but it was filling and enough to keep us sated until breakfast. Ritsu, after I'd choked down the first bite, brought her bread up to her mouth and took a cautious chomp. "Mmph?!" she mmph-ed into the bread, and I shrugged.

"Sorry your first taste of human food isn't great," I said. "I promise, as soon as we get our feet under us and can afford real food, I'll buy you something nice, okay?"

Ritsu swallowed. "It's, it's fine," she said. "Just drier than I expected. ...Oh!"

I watched as she held the bread in one hand and started drawing her pointer and middle fingers over it. Ritsu traced an S shape, and my eyes widened as a glowing blue sigil followed her finger. At the end of the S shape, she tapped the center of the S and a glowing screen appeared, hovering over the mini loaf of bread.

My breath caught in my throat for an instant. The way she held her hands... It was exactly like swiping open my menu in ALO or GGO. Then again, Underworld ran on the Seed, so it made sense. "Take a look at this!" Ritsu said.

"Let me see..." I mimicked her motion and grinned when the S I'd drawn expanded into a screen over my own bread. Ha hah! Take that, bread! I will examine your secrets! "Huh, it's a status window or something."

"Sister Alyssum called it a Stacia Window," Ritsu told me. "You can see how much Life an object has left with it. Did you have anything like this in... It's weird to think of it like this, but in our- my world?"

"Not really," I mumbled as I studied the screen. "Would have made finding Korosensei's weaknesses easier if I did."

The window itself didn't give me much information; it was purple with some circuit-looking lines tracing the edge of it. At the very top right there was a line that read 'Unit Type: Object/Food' which was probably its main classification. In the large segment that took up the left half of the screen, there was a Unit ID that looked like a random string of three letters then a bunch of numbers as well as a few white bars that probably denoted _something_. Not that I have any idea what. The rest of the status - or, Stacia - window had three lines: a Class, which apparently was None; a durability, which was at 40 of 45 and ticked down to 39 of 45 as I watched; and an empty line with no text in either the value or the descriptor field.

I wonder if it works on everything? I tried the gesture out on the bench Ritsu and I were sitting on and was rewarded with the Stacia Window for what was apparently an Object/Furniture with 200 durability. Neat.

I raised the bread to my mouth, and then realized something kinda important. "Ritsu? Did Sister Alyssum happen to show you how to close the window?"

"She did," Ritsu said. "Tap the top right, like this." She tapped at the screen and it faded away in a shimmer. I did the same, and could get back to the important task of eating my food. Bleugh. Dry, tasteless. But it was bread. Maybe there's an Object/GoodFood type somewhere? Or would it still be Object/Food, just with the Good Class?

I finished before Ritsu did (she kept screwing her face up before each bite, which while cute was just a reminder of how her first taste of food was this) and stared up at the sky until she finished. The stars were just starting to peek out over the horizon, and there were more than I remembered. Then again, the light pollution here would be way less than in the real world. I guess it makes sense that I could see more stars here, even if I couldn't pick out any of the few constellations that I knew.

"Ah, it's almost night," Ritsu said, and I looked over to see her staring up at the sky just like me. "The sister said they had a curfew later, so we should hurry back to the church."

"Yep, let's go." I stood up and stretched indolently. Ritsu did the same before she grinned at me. I just rolled my eyes before I grinned in response. "Oh nooo, I forgot how to get back, help me Ritsu~."

"Hey, you know how to get back to the church," Ritsu complained. She folded her arms and frowned at me. "Mr. Karasuma taught all of us to have better situational awareness than that!"

"Noooope, I have no idea."

"Ugh, you're just being difficult, aren't you?"

"I would never!" It's fun to tease her.

Ritsu hesitated, before she frowned. "You're messing with me. You have to be. Rythin!"

I cackled in glee while my friend threw her hands up in irritation and huffed before she started to storm off. Still snickering, I followed behind Ritsu to the entrance to the church. At least she'd calmed down from my earlier teasing, not that I had been serious or that she'd been seriously upset. She knocked on the wooden door to the church, but nobody answered right away. So, I spent the time studying the door itself. It had ornate carvings on it, something that no other door in the city seemed to have. They looked really nice, though.

The door opened up and a stern-looking woman stood in the doorway. I think stress lines around her mouth and brow made her look older than she actually was, and the simple habit she wore didn't do much to help the image of severity. "You're just in time," she said. "Come inside." This must be the Sister Alyssum that Ritsu talked to.

Ritsu and I exchanged glances but it's not like we had anywhere else to go. So, we followed the sister into the church. The inside of the church was lit up by lamps that all lined the wall, and the warm light set something inside me at ease. Aside from that, the occasional painting that hung on the wall and nice wood paneling gave me the impression of stepping inside a nice hotel instead of a church. It actually reminded me a lot of the hotel we went to on the Okinawan island.

At least, I hope it's just the decor that makes me think like that and not anything like assassins trying to attack me. That would suck.

"We have already eaten dinner," Sister Alyssum said without looking back at me or Ritsu. "It's almost time for lights out, so you two will be assigned rooms. I hope there's no problem with separate rooms, is there?"

She phrased it as a question, but I was pretty sure she wasn't really asking. After all, why would she let two young adults like me and Ritsu stay together? Something might happen~. Though... really, I was probably the safest person to sleep in a room with Ritsu. I wouldn't do anything at all, naturally.

"It's fine," I said. "You're kind enough to put us up for the night, we won't complain."

The sister glanced at me over her shoulder before she nodded once. "Very well." As we passed another room, Sister Alyssum flagged a younger girl down. "Take the young man to his room, Ruri."

"Yes, Sister," the young girl said. She wore a smaller version of Sister Alyssum's habit, but other than that nothing really stood out about her. "Come on, I'll take you to your room."

I nodded. "See you tomorrow morning, Ritsu," I said with a smile. Ritsu grinned back before Sister Alyssum started moving again and my friend scurried to catch up.

...

"Here," Ruri said. "I brought you a blanket and a pillow."

"Thank you," I said, and accepted them gratefully.

The room I'd been shown to was small but cozy, with a window looking out into the street and a single lamp on the wall. Aside from the bed I was sitting on and a desk and chair sitting against the wall opposite me, there really wasn't much. The clothes I'd woken up in were sitting on that desk; I'd been given something to change into as pajamas of a sort, though they weren't _really_ pajamas. It was just a slightly softer tunic and pair of pants. Probably made out of a different material than my original shirt and pants.

"Prayers begin at six. Breakfast at seven," Ruri told me in a flat voice. "Please wake yourself in time for prayers, and do _not_ miss them. I will come check on you in the morning just in case."

"Eheheh... sure. I'll try my best."

Ruri nodded once. She's taking this seriously... I wonder if she's the oldest kid? She seems a little unemotional, though I'm not sure why. "There is a curfew after lights out. Please do not leave the church once curfew begins."

I studied the pillow and think blanket, then looked back up at Ruri. "Understood." Good. Fewer witnesses for when I sneak out, at least. "Thank you."

She didn't reply. "If you remember how to turn off the lamp, then I will leave. Have a good evening."

"Yeah, sure. Night." Once Ruri stepped out of the room, I stretched and rolled my shoulders. "Mmmm... Alright, this is going to be a fun night. Hopefully I can just get in and out." Talking to myself was probably a bad habit? But, I'd gotten into it back in Aincrad and never really seen a reason to break it. Now, I just need to turn off the light, and...

Hm. How _do_ I turn off the light?

I studied the little glass thing and tilted my head. I tapped the glass a few times thoughtfully and then hummed again when that produced no results. Maybe the Stacia window? That'd be silly, though. All that just to turn things off? And besides, the Stacia window was just a status screen. It shouldn't have any controls...

...Ah! When I tilted my head, I saw a little nubbin on the bottom of the lamp. I twisted that and the light went out. Nailed it.

I put the pillow and blanket on the bed before I stretched, raising my arms in the air until I felt my back crack again. "Mmmmn…" Aaah, that feels better. If we hadn't managed to find a place to stay and a small way to get some money, I would be dozing right now, waiting for the curfew so I could sneak out to go steal some coins without anyone catching me. Since we didn't really have to worry about that, I could actually relax for a little bit. In that case… I'm gonna go to sleep a little early.

While I dozed on the bed, I heard footsteps out in the hall, along with some chatter from what I assumed were kids. They sounded like young voices. Come to think of it, Ruri herself was pretty young, right? Maybe a few years younger than my age of 19.

After a little bit of sitting on the bed with my eyes closed, I snorted and rolled over. This is ridiculous. Even after walking for an hour or so and then searching for work until dark, I couldn't fall asleep. Mmm… Maybe walking around for a bit will help me get sleepy.

I stood up and opened the door. The hallway was empty but I still walked quietly, putting all of Karasuma's lessons to work for moving. If someone else was asleep, then I didn't want to wake them up with my wandering. Being quiet wasn't really hard, all things considered; I'd gotten used to my body through the rest of the day. I just needed to walk properly and the noise from my movement all but vanished -

"...hair is really pretty!"

"Thank you!"

I froze outside the door I'd been about to pass. It was closed but I could still hear through it - the doors were pretty thin. The reason I'd stopped though was that the second voice was Ritsu, replying to a young girl.

"Miss Ritsu, was the guy your husband?"

"N-No! He's just a good friend, that's all..."

Heh. Sounds like she's getting along with the kids, at least. If we have to stick around for a while, that won't be the end of the world, I guess.

I stepped out into the small yard behind the church. There was a stone well and some farming implements like a hoe and a rake leaning against the wall. They weren't even going to lock the tools up? That's strange. Maybe people just really trust each other here.

Putting the matter aside for the moment, I looked up at the night sky again. Kirito… Where are you? I hope you're okay. Though, knowing you, you've managed to land in some trouble and come out on top, haven't you? Heh. He's probably managed to capture the heart of some number of girls by now. Asuna and the others will be pretty mad at him if he manages to flirt with more girls.

…Oh well. There's not much I can do for right now. First things first, I need to find a way to get some supplies. We were lucky this time, but Ritsu and I probably can't travel very easily. We'll need supplies and a way to defend ourselves if we can't find someone going out. That was the second reason I'd been looking around earlier.

After all, if it worked once, it'll work again. The best thing to do is to get my name out there and have people know who I was. Kirito might not be looking for me – he probably won't even know I'm in Underworld – but if he hears 'Rythin' then he'll know I'm nearby. And what better way than to get my name out there than by finding the capital?

Part of what I'd been doing this afternoon while asking around for work was asking people what was around here. Unfortunately, we were about two weeks of travel away from the capital, Centoria. We'd need to find a way to carry some supplies and weaponry to defend ourselves against wild animals if we wanted to try to walk that far. If we didn't want that – because it would be expensive – then the next best thing would be to hitch a ride with merchants. Veshire was mostly self-sufficient, but they still needed to import certain goods that they couldn't make themselves. Mostly meat, since nobody had the Calling of 'Butcher' in town.

Why that meant they couldn't just raise cows or pigs on their own, I didn't know, but whatever. It meant that merchants came from Centoria several times a year to bring shipments of salted meat. If one showed up, we might be able to travel to Centoria with them.

I heaved a sigh and rubbed at my eyes. They were starting to feel heavy. Guess that walk helped out after all. It was past curfew once I slipped back into the church, but I didn't get caught sneaking through the halls back to my room.

Once I fell asleep, I slept soundly.

* * *

I couldn't stop smiling. I didn't want to rub it in Asuna's face, but I just couldn't stop smiling.

I got to see Nick again! And he was perfectly fine!

"Ah, Kana," Asuna said, "doesn't the ocean look pretty in the sunset?"

I peered up at her. She was standing on the ceiling, which was weird. Then I rolled over and sat up on the bed instead of lying on my back, and everything turned rightside-up. "Yeah," I said, hopping up. "lemme take a look."

I tried not to let my joy show through too much while we look out the long and narrow window on the other side of the bed, but Asuna looked at me and smiled. "I'm happy," she said. "I got to see my brother, and he was fine. I can't imagine how happy you are, Kana."

"Nyahaha," I laughed sheepishly. "Sorry... I didn' want ta rub it in since we still haven't seen yer idiot yet, but..."

"It's fine," she said. "And... I like your accent."

I blushed a little bit. Only a little. My lying ears felt hot, but I will deny it to my dying day. "Thanks," I muttered. Nick said he liked it, so... Asuna just giggled and smiled at me. "How'd th' gals take the news?"

"Pretty well," Asuna said. Her hand drifted over to the AmuSphere she'd brought with her; while I'd read a fantasy book Nick recommended me, she'd Dived into ALO to let the girls know what was going on with Kazuto and Nick. "Sugu and Shinonon looked so relieved that the boys were safe."

I grinned and turned back to my book. "Good ta hear."

The pages had long since captured my attention and drawn me into the story when something in our room suddenly buzzed loudly. I jumped, searching for the source of the noise, and then relaxed when I realized it was the doorbell equivalent. Asuna and I exchanged a glance before she pressed the remote answer button. "Yes," Asuna said.

"It's me, Koujiro. Can I come talk to you two for a moment?"

I nodded when Asuna looked at me. "Of course," my friend said as she pressed the open button on the control. "I'm opening the door now."

The door slid open, and Professor Koujiro stepped in. She glanced around our room for a few seconds before she stepped over to the window and stared outside. Unfortunately for her, it was dark outside, and clouds had blocked the stars.

The professor placed a few plastic bottles of oolong tea on the table before she sat down on the hard sofa. It really wasn't comfortable to sit on - I'd already tried it out earlier - but it was still better than standing. "Go ahead and drink," she told us, gesturing at the bottles.

"Thank you very much," Asuna said. "I was just feeling thirsty."

"Have you tried the tap water?" Koujiro asked us.

I glanced at her over the bottle of tea, and rolled my eyes. "Maybe I'll try drinkin' some river water back in Tokyo, might taste better."

"Well, it seems to be purified seawater. There wouldn't be any trihalomethanes mixed in... Who knows, it might actually be healthier than the desalinated water you can buy in stores."

I kinda just stared at Koujiro over the top of my bottle. Tri-what now? I can kinda guess from context, but still, c'mon.

Exhaling hard after a gulp of her own bottle of tea, Koujiro said, "It's too bad you couldn't see Kirigaya. At least you got to see Weyr."

"Yeah," Asuna smiled. "And now that I know one of them is fine, I feel like I _know_ Kirito is gonna be okay. I'm so happy I feel like I'm dreaming."

"Such troublesome men, suddenly disappearing to the middle of the ocean like this. You two had better tighten their leashes," Koujiro told us.

I just laughed. "Nick knows better 'n to try somethin' like this again," I said with an airy wave. "But... thanks f'r accepting our request, Professor Koujiro," I said, making an effort to keep my accent down a bit. "We asked something really unreasonable, and you helped us out... I don't know how we can thank you."

The professor shook her head. "There's no need. And, please, just call me Rinko. And... this hasn't lightened my guilt I feel. For what I did to you two, and Kirigaya and Weyr." She took a deep breath and stared at us. "...There's… something I have to confess to you. No, not just you... I owe one to all the SAO players, living and dead..."

Asuna and I exchanged a quick glance, but didn't say anything. Rinko unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt and opened it wide. As she retrieved a thin silver necklace, I could see a scar to the left of her sternum. "Do you two know... this scar?" she asked.

Asuna stared right at it - right at her heart - and I nodded. "Yer heart," I said. "That's where the long-distance micro-bomb was planted while ya were up in the mountains, hidin' out. Akihiko Kayaba used it to threaten you, so that you would care for his body while he was in Aincrad."

"Correct," Rinko said, putting her necklace back down and buttoning her shirt again. "I was forced to take part in that terrifying plan and care for that person's body as he Dived for a long time. That's why I wasn't sued, my name wasn't disclosed, and I was able to move to America. But... that's not the truth."

I raised an eyebrow. Everything I'd read supported that, and I'd like to think I was good at research...

"It's true that the bomb was taken out at the police hospital, and that it could have been triggered, but I knew it wouldn't explode. It was a bluff to keep me safe. The only gift he gave to me."

Asuna and I kept watching her. Asuna had a better poker face than I did; she hadn't even flinched.

"When Akihiko got into the Toto Institute of Technology, he was already the head of development. But I didn't care about that. I just saw a scrawny loner who only cared about his research. We were total opposites, but we started dating. Counting the time we spent in higher education, we were lovers for six years... but I'm the only one who thought that way. I might be older than you, but I feel so stupid because I couldn't see Kayaba's heart at all. All he wanted was one thing, and I had no idea.

"I knew about the SAO incident through the news, and I recognized Kayaba's name and photo. I couldn't believe it, but when I saw the police cars surrounding his mansion I knew it had to be true." Her voice had a slightly hollow ring to it. Talking about this clearly hurt, but she kept going. "He never said a single word to me until the end, just like when he started. Not a single email. Yeah... I was really an idiot. I helped with the basic design of the NerveGear, and I knew that he was making games at Argus, but I never knew what he was thinking.

"When he disappeared without a trace, I ran around Japan looking for him. I finally thought of something - in the past, there was a marker in the Nagano mountains in his car navigation log. Something inside me told me he'd be there, so I went without saying anything to the police. Maybe if I had, the SAO incident would have ended differently..."

She shook her head. "I avoided police surveillance and went to Nagano alone. I spent three days searching for the mountain villa, I was covered in mud... I worked so hard to find him. I... wanted to kill Kayaba."

Her voice started to shake as she said, "But... I'm sorry, Asuna, Kana. I couldn't kill him. He knew I had a knife and just said, 'What am I going to do with you' like he always did, before putting on the NerveGear again and returning to Aincrad. He never cared about the long beard he grew, and... I... I just..."

In the end, she finally had to stop talking and focus on breathing. I looked at Asuna, and she said gently, "None of us ever blamed you, Rinko." She smiled faintly at Rinko. "To tell you the truth, I can't really say I hate the commander either – I mean, Akihiko Kayaba." I winced. Most of the time, we all forget that she was the second-in-command of the guild Kayaba created in SAO... "I'm not saying Heathcliff should be forgiven. He shouldn't. Because of what he did, a lot of lives were lost. But still... I know it's selfish of me, but I feel like the short time I lived together with Kirito in that world is the best memory of my life at this point. I wouldn't trade anything for that time."

I nodded. "I was an info broker, in the game. I bought and sold information that led people to their deaths. But at the same time, I met Nick in SAO," I said. "If it hadn't been for the incident, who knows what might have happened?"

Asuna's hand twitched towards where her rapier always hung. "Yes, the commander committed a crime, and so did Kirito and I. So did Kana and Nick, and so are you, Rinko... We all did something wrong. And in the end, even if we're punished, there's no way to make it right. I don't think the day will ever come when we're forgiven. All we can do is own up to it. There's no choice but to face our sins, and keep going."

* * *

My eyes cracked open when the door to my room opened. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, half expecting to see Asuna or Kana, or - but it wasn't any of the girls, it was just Ruri. "You are awake," she said. "Good. It is five thirty. Prayers begin in thirty minutes. Do not be late."

I nodded dumbly and she backed out of the room, closing the door behind her. Well, okay then. She'd scared me a little bit. Maybe took a few weeks off of my life or something like that.

...Hey, hang on a second. Life, that's the thing Ritsu said durability was called, right? I wonder if I actually lost any. After a quick stretch to loosen up my limbs, I traced the S pattern on my palm and opened up the Stacia window. Let's see here... Unit Type, Human/Male. Good, that's right. I'd be worried if that had changed in the middle of the night…

Unit ID WWD6-6321, alright, cool, that means nothing to me. But what was _really_ interesting was the Object Control and System Control fields. The Object Control was marked 'Authority', whatever that meant, and had a value of 38. That one was located where the empty Class field from the bread had been. System Control was probably also the Authority class, but why was that 1? Why was the number marked differently?

I shook my head. Gods, I should know better than to try to figure this stuff out when I have a small amount of time between waking up and getting somewhere important. It's too easy for me to get sucked down the rabbit hole when I'm tired.

Morning prayers were... weird, though I was dozing through half of them and missed almost all of it. I still heard a few things about the Axiom Church, as well as prayers to Stacia, Solus, and Terraria. While drifting in and out of sleep, I slumped to the side. "Rythin!" Ritsu hissed quietly as she shoved at me. "Rythin, don't fall asleep!"

"Mmm, 'm awake..."

"You're not! You're sleeping on my shoulder - oh, what's the point... You always dozed through morning classes anyway…"

Mmm, comfy.

I was roused from my doze after about forty-five minutes by Ritsu shrugging her shoulder and disturbing me. I sat up and rubbed at my eyes stealthily. "Sit up," she whispered. "They're almost done."

"Thanks..."

"And you have some, uh..." She tapped at her mouth and I brought my sleeve up. Bluh, I hate when I drool in my sleep. "You got it."

I smiled. "Thanks Ritsu, you're great."

Once prayers were over, Ruri and Sister Alyssum headed to the kitchen to start preparing food. Lured by the alluring thought of getting food earlier, I followed them. While they were working, I watched from the entrance. "...Can we help you?" Ruri asked as soon as she turned around and noticed me.

"Would you mind if I help?" I asked. "That looks like a lot of food to prepare."

Ruri blinked, and then looked at Sister Alyssum. "Will that be against the Taboo Index?"

"Forcing a guest to help would be," the sister replied. "But as he has offered his assistance, no."

Taboo Index, huh? I let that turn over in my mind while I picked up a knife and started chopping the ingredients. A list of things that were forbidden... If I had to guess, a few of the things that had confused me were on that list. Things like 'Taking tools that didn't belong to you' or 'Raising farm animals' were probably forbidden for whatever reason. I wonder what happens if someone breaks the Taboo Index? Would it be like Aincrad, where the 'Taboo Index' was just a renaming of the world's rules and it's literally impossible to do something against the rules? Or would it be like my world, where it would break the law and I would only get in trouble if I got caught?

"Your Calling... Maybe a chef?"

I blinked. I'd been deep in thought, but Ruri's voice brought me out of it. "Hmm?"

Ruri looked at the food I'd already chopped with precise movements. "You handle that knife like it's something you're used to. Perhaps your Calling was to be a chef."

"Maybe it was." Not like I can tell them that my calling was to be an assassin, or anything else like that. A chef, huh? That'll explain like, maybe a quarter of my talents, but that's good enough for anything I'm going to willingly show people. "You're probably right. Thanks, Ruri." The quiet girl nodded and went back to focusing on her own meal preparation. As for me, chopping something was just letting my hands do the work, so I zoned out until food was ready.

It was nice to not have to worry about things for a little bit and just do some productive work, for a while.

* * *

**So! Been a while, hasn't it? But we're back, and ready to get going. Nick's adventure through the looking glass begins... again? Re-begins? I don't know.**

**First and foremost: Ritsu. I was always going to have someone come along with Nick's adventures; he needs backup of some sort, and I'll be honest - a solo adventure at this point just seems boring to me. Originally, it was going to be another original character, but then I saw a few reviews saying how much they liked Ritsu, and figured why not? Just throw Ritsu into this as well, and there we go. Perfect companion for Nick.**

**As for the Underworld geometry, we don't really know much about it in general, so I had to guess. Obviously, every Underworld character and place has been made up, save for a few of the more important names. Wesdarath (the Western Empire) has very little information about it and so I kinda just guessed at the type of land, based on the small glimpse of the Western Empire we got in the anime; there's a long-distance shot of Centoria that shows a dark grey coloration so I just rolled with it and made it the swampy area.**

**Let's have fun with Nick's last adventure, everyone.**

* * *

**Overview of the last two adventures:**

Rythin, instead of being dropped into Underworld after being stabbed by Johnny Black, was added to the world of Assassination Classroom, where he underwent training to be an assassin. He also learned to fucking chill for once in his life, and has the worst of his anger issues under control.

Ritsu, who he met there, is/was an AI student in the classroom. She's very close to him (to the point of having fallen in love, and remained in love for three years); she was added to the Underworld with Rythin at Kana and Asuna's request, so he wouldn't be alone.

That should... hopefully be everything you need.


	2. Taboo

**Chapter 2: Taboo**

* * *

**March 20th, 379 HE**

I stretched and yawned widely into the crook of my elbow. It wasn't like anyone cared if I yawned in their face here, but old habits died hard. Asuna had scolded me more than once for my manners while we were in school together, after all, and it's usually easier to follow along with what she wants rather than sit through another lecture.

Man, I miss those lectures. I can't wait to hear her lecture me again. 'Nick, you should wake up earlier so that you're alert for the work day', or 'Nick, it's important to make a good impression so helping out at the church is to be expected'.

Shush, mental Asuna, it's fine. Ritsu is helping out at the church, and it's not like we're planning to stick around for too long. Sister Alyssum said that the pink-haired girl's help meant that we were more or less paying rent and not to worry about paying them back, which was nice. That meant that every coin I made that we didn't spend on food was set aside so that we could buy a trip to Centoria on a merchant's cart the next time one was in town.

And I was making money pretty quickly for the few days that I'd been in town. The best part of having my assassination skills? It meant I could do a lot of odd jobs around town. Chopping wood? Carrying supplies? Easy, and honestly good training for this body. Since I couldn't accurately 'remember' my Calling - read, I never had one to begin with - I was able to do pretty much everything anyone would pay me for.

In this case, I was helping out one of the many farmers in town on their work in the fields. It wasn't much in the way of activity, but 'guarding' them was pretty lucrative in terms of payment. I was basically acting as a town guard for them and them alone, after all. I mostly just stood around the edge of the field and chased off any wild animals that approached and tried to enjoy the strange salad bar someone conveniently set up for them. This isn't your lunch, strange rabbit!

"Pay attention, boy," the farmer that had hired me growled. "We're almost there."

"Yeah, yeah..."

"And stay awake!"

I rolled my eyes. The guy who'd hired me was like, the archetypal grizzled old farmer, with squinting eyes and stubble verging on grey. He even had a little wheelbarrow with tools that he pulled along behind him. I'd complain, but he was the only one willing to hire me for guard duty and toss me an old rusty dagger.

Plus, the gruffness was almost reassuring. He'd handed me the dagger and told me, "Show me what you can do." He'd gestured at a log sitting next to him.

I'd glanced at the log, and then at the edge of the dagger. I'd hummed as I ran my finger across the side of the weapon. Not nicked - heh, nicked - but clearly well-used. In the end, I had to use what I was given and I took up a familiar stance.

When the blade glowed, I had almost been surprised. Sword Skills! My lips had split into a grin as I'd slashed down in a very familiar «Vertical» technique that split the log cleanly in half. It had been over a year since I'd been able to use them, and I was glad to have the assist.

"Hmph," the man had grunted. "Not bad. You'll do. Let's go."

The grudging compliment had felt pretty good, like the few times Karasuma had praised my technique. I wonder why those always made me feel warm. Maybe it was a dagger skill thing? Who knows. I thought I'd managed to break myself of viewing the blade as an extension of myself, though.

When we got to the field, the farmer promptly forgot that I existed and went about his daily routine. I blinked a few times at being so totally dismissed without even being told what to do or where to go, then shrugged and started wandering around. His field was pretty small; I completed my first lap in about five minutes and started up on my second for lack of something better to do.

Man... This pays well but it's _super_ boring when there's nothing to do. About halfway through the morning I cracked my neck after completing my tenth or so lap. I don't know, I lost track after a while and just let my feet walk in circles. "You need me to help out with anything?"

The grizzled farmer looked at me for a long second, then grunted. "Just do your job."

"Fine, sheesh. Thought I'd offer." Prickly old bastard. Well, I guess I didn't expect anything different. Everyone in this world is super strict about doing their own work and nothing else. Only the farm's Owner was allowed to work a given farm, nobody else. Probably something else about the Taboo Index that I really need to sit down and read at some point. I couldn't even ask for a copy of the Taboo Index to read over at night, either; when I mentioned it, Sister Alyssum had shaken her head and lectured me about not ever reproducing sacred words.

I'll be honest. I was never one for religion, and having it crammed down my throat was... hoo boy. It wasn't like I was against religion or anything like that. While I might not personally be a believer, it helped other people and... well, Kana was way more devout than I was, let's just say that. So, while I wasn't going to be upset that people were religious, I just wanted people to not make _me_ be religious as well.

...Come to think of it, I probably shouldn't be staying in a church if that's my complaint, all things considered. But that aside, it's still pretty pervasive through every aspect of life in the Underworld apparently.

I shook my head to chase the thoughts away and realized that somewhere along the line I'd kept doing loops around the farm. I was going to wear down the Life of my boots like this...

When the bells tolled lunch, the old man tossed me a small cloth bundle. When I unwrapped it, it was a loaf of bread. He grunted again and sat down to his own meal, an identical loaf of bread. That was part of the deal, after all; I got lunch and a paycheck, and in exchange I kept his farm safe from interlopers.

While I munched on the semi-dry bread, I looked around at the other farmers. The farms were distant, but I could still pick out a few colorful tunics and straw hats here and there. "So how did you get picked to be the farmer of this field?" I asked idly.

The farmer grunted. ...I just realized; I had no idea what his name was. "It's been in my family for years. M' father, and his father, and his father, all the way back ten generations. Our Calling has always been to take care of this plot of land." Interesting. I guess a Calling is hereditary? "It's hard work and we barely make enough to get by, but the food we grow is enough for us to survive."

Subsistence farming, huh? Seems a little... "Can't you clear some of the trees?" I asked. "I'm sure there's usable farmland here -"

I stopped halfway through the suggestion when the grizzled farmer shook his head. "It's against the Taboo Index to cut down trees if your Calling isn't to be a Woodcutter. And there hasn't been a Woodcutter for years. Some people in town talk about trying to fill the marsh to our south, there's nothin' preventing that, but it's called a bottomless marsh for a reason. Pfeh." He spat to the side.

I didn't pry much after that, because he'd answered most of my questions already. The only one left would be 'what happens when someone breaks the Taboo Index', but I'm pretty sure my temporary boss wouldn't exactly be pleased if his worker went up to him and said, "Hey I want to know what happens when you break the rules of the world". If I did end up breaking the Taboo Index, who knows? It might be a fine, I might end up going to super-jail.

When the bells rang again, a half hour after lunch started, all the farmers got back to work. Looks like their legally mandated paid lunch is over. Oh well, time to get back to work. One nice thing, I noticed as I pushed myself to my feet, my body is pretty tough in this world. My feet didn't even hurt despite walking around for several hours straight. Hopefully, Ritsu is having a good day...

...

I grinned as I spotted some movement in the nearby forest. Finally, something to do. "I'm going to go check something out, if you don't mind," I called out to my boss. He grunted, more absorbed in tending to some plants than listening to me. Sure sounds like permission to me!

What's that? He didn't actually say anything? Sorry brain, can't hear you, too busy going off to explore the woods!

While I might not be strictly doing the right thing and abiding by my word, I'd made sure to ask and receive permission to bounce for a bit. Therefore, nobody could complain when I entered the woods and cracked my neck. I bounced up and down to loosen my body up a little bit, and then jumped for the nearest tree and swung myself up. While I don't mind walking, it's just so much more fun to jump through the trees. I guess being part of E Class has given me some tastes when it comes to moving around.

Now, as for the _reason_ I was in the forest in the first place... Mainly boredom, really. But I did see something pushing its way through the bushes. Naturally, I was going to do my duty and check it out.

As I leapt through the branches, I hummed in thought. I was moving pretty quickly, but I hadn't seen anything at all. Did that mean I just imagined the movement? No, my senses were sharper than that. Even my weaker eyes weren't a real factor in this situation thanks to the innate properties of the virtual world. So I should be able to track whatever it was I saw.

My dedication was rewarded a few minutes later when the bushes rustled. I grinned and hopped down out of the trees. Come out, come out, whatever you are...

The thing I'd been following answered my unspoken request and pretty much immediately I decided I regretted my past few decisions. What emerged from the bushes sent one thought through my mind: 'Are wolves _always_ this big?' The grey-furred beast that stared at me with golden eyes was easily up to my chest, with shoulders that were wider than my own. My breath caught in my throat as I stared down a predator that clearly had decided _I_ was going to be its next meal. ...I think I know what happened to the past woodcutters -

I couldn't keep thinking because the wolf snarled and lunged at me. Even while I consciously panicked with my mind trying to reconcile between 'Nice doggy' and 'Oh fuck me', my training took over and I jumped to the side. The wolf's jaws snapped shut where my leg used to be and it skidded in the brush before snarling loudly. With the second afforded to me by its threat display, I was able to draw my dagger and hold it out in front of me. Heavy...!

The dagger was strangely heavy, but it fit in my hand. A grin pulled at my lips as I slowly stepped to the side, placing my back to a tree. The first fight I got into in this world, and it only took a few days. Good thing I know about Sword Skills!

With a shout I jumped up to let the wolf's next lunge pass under me. It slid to the side and avoided my plunging stab, but I didn't wait and kicked off towards it. My dagger raked across its side, a spray of blood answering the blade's edge. My eyes widened at the crimson color staining grey fur. Real blood -!

I might have been distracted, but that's what training was for. After I slashed, I tucked into a roll automatically to avoid any follow-up. The snarl behind me told me that I'd made the right move, and I burst out of the roll into a run with the wolf snapping at my heels. It bit at me once and before it could try again, I lunged for a tree branch and swung up to safety. Short breaths re-stabilized into a steady in and out rhythm as I calmed myself down and thought.

Wolves hunt in packs, and I can't fight off a whole pack of wolves by myself. The only hope I have is to kill this thing before it howls. After all, an assassin picks his targets when they're alone, right? So, as soon as my panting calmed I jumped down. My blade glowed in midair, and I smirked. "Haah!"

The wolf barely had time to react before the green edge bit into its face. The spray of blood surprised me, but it only splashed part of my tunic before I was moving, flowing into the second hit of the combo that had been drilled into me. I slipped to the side and stabbed upwards, driving the tip of my dagger into the underside of the wolf's jaw. Using that as a pivot point, I slid onto its back and _twisted_.

The crack nearly surprised me, but the way its body went limp didn't. I grinned -

The instant I killed the wolf that had been attacking me, something shifted in the world around me. There was a strange sound behind me and I whirled around, raising my dagger pre-emptively, but there was no enemy. Instead, I watched as space twisted in a vortex, a purple and violet swirl forming in midair to reveal a featureless head with blank white eyes. What... "A singular unit has been detected. Tracing its ID. Coordinates fixed. Report complete."

With the sound of space swallowing itself - and that was a hell of a thing for it to sound like, but I had no idea how else to imagine it - the head vanished. What... What was that?! Seriously, what was that? It was like looking at the decapitated head of a mannequin, except somehow _creepier because it was talking at me_! Gods above... I'm never going to be able to go to the mall with Kana ever again.

Or until the next time she asks me to go, whichever occurs first.

I huffed out a quiet sigh and knelt to wipe off my blade on the pelt of the dead wolf. I'll be sure to wash it off properly before I hand it back. It'd be bad manners to give him a dirty blade, after all. It didn't take too long for me to use the tree branches to make my way back to the fields. In fact, I was even faster than before! My body felt lighter than before, and I was hopping through the tree branches without stumbling or needing to catch myself very often.

"Heh. Guess I'm finally warmed up, huh?" I cracked my neck after I strolled out of the forest. It made a very satisfying sound and I grinned.

The old farmer glanced at me when I returned. He was in the middle of examining the leaves of some crops. "Where did you go?"

"Thought I saw something in the forest. Went to check it out."

"Killing wildlife is forbidden by the Taboo Index unless you have the Hunter Calling," he said. It sounded automatic, rote. I guess they learn this thing by heart, huh?

"Naturally," I said. "I didn't see anything notable."

He squinted at me, then visibly decided I wasn't enough of a problem child to warrant any more of his attention.

"Oh, uh, do you have some water I can use to clean up blood?" I offered him my arm to show him the long scratch across the back of my hand, slowly oozing blood. "I might have scratched myself on a thorn or something somewhere and didn't notice."

Still technically not a lie. The wolf's teeth had closed a little closer than I'd thought during the fight, and I hadn't noticed thanks to the adrenalin pumping through my body. I just mentally filed that under 'or something' when I spoke, that's all.

"Here." My boss tossed me a small scrap of cloth. "Stop the bleeding with that, then wash up." He turned back to his crops and grumbled about idiot guards and idiot swordsmen.

Once I tied the cloth around my hand, the cut tingled and I jumped a little bit. Wasn't expecting that! When the itching sensation died away, I unwrapped the bandage. The cut from the wolf had faded away entirely, leaving smooth unmarred skin behind. It disappeared entirely, like Korosensei had stitched it up in seconds. Amazing... So that's the power of the game system, compared to the real world. All those cuts and scrapes from training with E Class could have disappeared like that, instead of being aches and pains that lasted for a few days.

I rinsed off the blade and my hands. As I was shaking my hands dry, a loud roar echoed through the air and shook me to the bones. The people all around me stood up and stared at the sky, mumbling in hushed whispers. The words 'Integrity Knight' were being thrown around by the farmers looking up, shielding their eyes with their hats or hands.

Then, the clouds split apart and a huge beast soared through the sky. I gasped despite myself at the sight of the black dragon, its scales reflecting almost a midnight blue color against the bright sky. As it crossed over the fields, my eyes picked out the _very interesting_ sight of an armored figure sitting atop the black dragon, holding onto reins. It was just for a second, but I almost felt like the man in the armor turned to look at me -

No, that's silly. Even with my game-assisted eyesight and Karasuma-trained kinetic vision, it wasn't so good that I could see that high up. The dragon flapped its wings and soared over the town, traveling east. I watched it until it disappeared past the spire of the Axiom Church. My eyes were riveted to the black form and I couldn't look away.

"Majestic, aren't they? Can't blame you for grinning like that, boy."

I jumped at the gruff voice of the farmer. Grinning? I blinked and then realized that my lips had pulled back in a grin. Well, like he said, who could blame me? Dragons! Dragons were cool!

Trying to control my expression, I wiped my hand down my lower face to get rid of the goofy smile. "Ahem..." After I cleared my throat, I turned to the old man. "There was someone riding on top, right?"

"Your eyes are pretty good, boy. The Integrity Knights keep the peace by protecting us from the monsters in the Dark Empire." He turned back to his crops. "Don't know why they're flying over this place, though. Maybe they're on their way back."

"I take it that's not a usual sight?" I caught myself standing on my toes like I could somehow see further and catch another glimpse of the _super-cool dragon_, and turned my back on the town deliberately.

"Hmph." He tugged at the brim of his hat. "More recent these days. But they've never stopped by the city, and today's no different. Now get back to work, I'm not paying you to stand around and chat all day."

"Yes sir."

...

After eating dinner with Ritsu and the others, I knocked on the door to her room. It was open, but I wanted her to know I was there since she was busy studying. After all, 'It's against the Taboo Index for someone to enter the room of someone of the opposite gender unless those two people are married', as Sister Alyssum had been quick to inform me. There were a lot of things against the Taboo Index, huh...?

Ritsu looked up from the desk where she'd been reading something and smiled. "Ni- Rythin! How was work?"

"Pretty good. The guy was a total grump but he paid well." I held up the leather pouch, and it jingled when I shook it. "A few more days of this, and we might have enough to buy supplies and walk to Centoria, if we want to do that." I grinned at her. "If you think your poor human body can last that long."

She stuck her tongue out at me, and I snickered.

"Anyway, do you mind taking a walk with me for a bit? There's some things I wanted to talk to you about," I said.

"Sure!" She put the book she was reading on the desk and stood up right away. "Let's go. Where to?"

I shrugged. "Away from the kids." I cast a light glare down the hall and a few of the children (boys and girls both) giggled and fled around the corner. Eavesdropping little brats... "Maybe out back?"

"Be nice, they're cute. Besides, you didn't have a problem with Sakura, did you?"

...That's different, that's not the same thing at all, and despite me not saying a word Ritsu smiled like she could read every thought crossing my mind in the last few seconds. "Let's just go," I grumped.

Ritsu followed me out of the church into the backyard, where she sat neatly on the small stone wall surrounding the field. "So, what did you want to talk about? Is it about Kirito?"

"Yeah," I said. We were still sticking to our cover story that we'd lost our memories except for our names, so I had to be careful. "And just some stuff for the next few days, to make sure we have our plans all in a row."

"I'm listening," she said. I glanced at her, and Ritsu the cute human girl had shifted almost imperceptibly into Ritsu the member of E Class. I couldn't name what had changed, but I knew she was focused now. "What are our operating parameters?"

"Hmm... Well, it's not the end of the world, but I might have screwed up earlier." Her eyes widened, and then darted to the stained edge of my sleeve. I clutched the fabric in my other hand. "Nothing awful, but I killed a wild wolf earlier when it attacked me and I think it was against the Taboo Index. Some weird face appeared to spout off what I'm guessing was some sort of tracer. Thing is, as soon as it finished with the report, it vanished and I haven't been approached yet."

Ritsu frowned. "So you think that whatever authority was contacted will approach you tomorrow?"

"Most likely." I shrugged. "If it's a fine, that's okay, I'll pay up and lesson learned. But if the punishment is more than that..."

I trailed off, but I knew Ritsu could follow my train of thought. "You want me to stay in place for a while, right?" Her cheeks puffed out in a pout. "I understand that an assassin has to keep their emotions in check during a mission, but do you _really_ want me to do nothing? I can help!"

"Remember what happened last time we went up against the government?" My question was only intended to be a light rebuke - basically the verbal equivalent of a poke on her nose - and I was glad to see that she didn't take any offense but still looked down at the ground and played with the ends of her twin-tails. "Yeah. I figure if anything bad happens, I'll be able to explain what happened and they won't mind too much. After all, I was just acting to save my own life, right?"

"Okay," Ritsu said with a firm nod. "I'll trust you, Rythin."

I forced down the impulse to tell her trusting me was a mistake, since I was trying desperately to be better than that. Kana thought I could be better than that, and Shino tended to scold me when I got a little _too_ self-deprecating. And after all, how could I disappoint my beloved girlfriend and little sister?

Instead, I just smiled at her. "In other, unrelated news, how are you holding up, Ritsu? It has to be weird, being a full human."

"Yeah!" Oops. Ritsu clenched her fists and leapt to her feet. "It's super weird! I mean, I have to _eat_ and _wake up on time_, and it's so hard to multitask now, did you know that? And my hair keeps getting so tangled it takes soooo long to brush it out!"

I laughed. That was, in retrospect, a mistake. "You think it's funny, huh?" Ritsu whirled on me, and I had to lean back to avoid literally eating one of her twin-tails. "W-Well, you know what? You can help, then! Stay there and don't move, got it?" She hurried back into the church, and I was so surprised by our sweet, demure little Ritsu actually giving me an order that I obeyed it.

When she got back, she sat down right in front of me and placed a hairbrush in my hand. "Uh, Ritsu?"

She crossed her arms and deliberately undid the ties in her hair. It fell in waves like a purple curtain, and she ran her fingers through it. "What? You have sisters, you've said it yourself. Or are you going to tell me Asuna never taught you how to brush long hair?"

"Eheheh..." I chuckled weakly and got started. "No, she taught me. I'll get started right away, Ritsu."

"Thank you very much, Rythin," she chirped, like she hadn't just brow-beaten me into brushing her hair for her.

While I worked the hairbrush through her hair, I smiled faintly. Just sitting here, doing this... It really was like I was sitting with Asuna, after all. Hah... I missed Kana, and all my family.

"Hey, Rythin?"

"Mmm?"

"You'll be okay, right? I know you want to find Kirito as soon as possible."

Ritsu leaned back against my chest, and automatically I wrapped my arms around her. I couldn't help it, she reminded me so much of Shino like that. "Yeah," I told her. "You know how us E Class students are. We're made of tough stuff, after all. Sure, I miss him, but I've missed him for a year now. It's better for us to take the extra time now to make sure we don't screw up later."

After looking up at me, Ritsu giggled. "Yeah. Korosensei had a saying for that, right?"

"Mm-hmm."

Together, we chorused, "Like the octopus, never be caught unprepared!"

He'd say that, and then half the class would shout back, 'How does that have anything to do with octopi?' and then he'd just do that crazy laugh of his.

"...I still miss him," Ritsu murmured. "Even though it's been five years, I never let that part of my memory get overwritten."

"I miss him too, Ritsu."

* * *

I woke up in the morning and the first thing I did after rolling out of bed was raise my arm and run through morning stretches. My muscles protested, still a little sore from yesterday's shenanigans in the woods, and I arched my back and flexed. A couple pops ran their way down my spine and I sighed in satisfaction. "Mmmm, that's always fun. Hnnn..." Talking to myself wasn't limited to just turning off lights, after all. It helped fill the emptiness when I was alone.

The morning prayers went as they did before - read, I tried and failed to keep my eyes from drifting shut, and Ritsu nudged me every time I started to slump against her instead of sitting up straight - and breakfast was the same. After I finished chopping up the ingredients, I splashed water on my face to _actually_ wake up. All things considered, I should probably do that before I cut things with a sharp knife. Oh well.

Speaking of sharp knives, I unsheathed the blade the old farmer had given me the day before and took up a calm stance in the yard. He'd let me keep the blade when I tried to give it back to him yesterday, saying something about me using it better than he ever had; since I couldn't pay him, it would have been against the Taboo Index for me to keep it, but since he'd given it to me, it was fine. All of this was a little ridiculously over-complicated, but hey. When in Rome, right?

With a harsh breath I leapt forward, pushing myself through the drills I'd long since memorized. "Hahaha!" It felt so good to be moving my body and swinging the blade in patterns that flashed through the air. I've been getting sloppy without practice! Even a few days was enough for me to get tagged by that wolf. Soon, though. Soon I'm going to be back in fighting shape, and I'll enjoy the burn until I'm back there.

Once I finished running through Karasuma's exercises, I cast my memory back to ALO. It had been a year, but... well, years of experience just gets hidden a little bit, not erased. It didn't take long for my blade to glow during all the important slashes while I hopped around the field.

"Having fun?"

I blinked away the ribbons of light left in my vision and grinned at Ritsu. The girl sat primly on the steps, watching me with a smile of her own. "It feels incredibly good to move my body like this. A few days made me super rusty."

Ritsu giggled at my expression. "Well, I didn't want to bother you, but it's starting to get later than usual."

I tilted my head and looked at her. Then I glanced at the sky and swore loudly. "I… totally lost track of time, thanks Ritsu, you're amazing." I quickly splashed some more water on my face and toweled the rest of the sweat from my hair. "See you at dinner."

"Have a good day," she said.

...

I was in the middle of chopping wood for a blacksmith in town when a shadow passed over all of us. I looked up and my mouth dropped open when I saw that same black dragon from yesterday circling around the town. "Dragon," I said, mostly to myself. My lips curled into a smile. "So cool..."

"Put that axe down, boy," the blacksmith said. "The Integrity Knight has asked everyone to gather in the main square."

"Coming," I said, and set the axe by the chopped firewood. The pile I'd chopped was already stacked pretty high, and the smith gave me an approving nod. I grinned at the look.

When I got to the square, it was full of people. I spotted the church contingent, and moved through the crowd smoothly until I stood next to Ritsu. She was staring at the sleek black dragon in front of her and jumped when my hand brushed her arm. "Oh, Rythin," she said. "I was..."

"Distracted by the dragon?" I grinned. "Me too."

Even while the dragon took up the majority of my attention, I scanned the crowd like a good member of E Class. Most people seemed shocked that a knight had appeared, though their general body language suggested awed reverence rather than fear. They loved the Integrity Knight... And why not, really? They guarded the borders against monsters, if what the old farmer had told me was true at all.

Speaking of, the Integrity Knight in the center of town had a healthy space surrounding him... her? I couldn't tell, thanks to the full-plate armor and white cloth cape. The helmet they wore obscured their face, a steel cross across the part that would be the face. Their head turned, and I could see their eyes gleam in the helmet. Oooh, someone looks serious.

After a few more minutes of the assembled people milling around and murmuring to each other, a fat man in rich-looking clothes stepped forward. "Ahem! Welcome to our city, Integrity Knight," he said, and brought his hand up in a strange salute. Left hand fist, right hand wrapped around it, and bow. Eugh, it even _sounded_ like his voice was fat, like he was still chewing on chicken or something while speaking. "I am the mayor of Veshire. What can I do for you?"

"I am Integrity Knight Dakira Synthesis Twenty-Two," the knight said, and I blinked. A woman, huh? With that kind of look, I was expecting a deep-voiced man, not going to lie. "Member of the Four Oscillation Blades, and protector of the Axiom Church. A member of your city has disobeyed the Taboo Index. I shall take him with me to answer for his crimes and be executed. Bring forth Rythin."

As soon as my name crossed her lips, my mind raced. Escape? No, Ritsu and I were in the center of the crowd. We could probably slip away, but it would delay our getaway long enough that even someone in heavy armor would be able to follow. Plus, dragon. They have the high ground, and sooner or later we'll be unable to hide properly. Plus, that's not even taking into account the fact that we'd suddenly be hunted criminals. Not exactly how I wanted Kirito to find me.

Dakira kept going, listing chapter and verse of the Taboo Index to support my 'crime', but I ignored her words.

Fight? In this crowded area, with a crappy weapon and no armor, against a fully armored opponent who is already aware of my presence in the city and has a giant greatsword strapped to her back? Plus, again, _dragon_. I probably wasn't going to win an unfair fight. Hells, a _fair_ fight would be a toss-up, and the only fight I wanted to fight was one where I could kill my opponent before they knew what was coming. That was my usual game plan even before receiving all the specialized training. If Ritsu had all her guns and processing power, then I _might_ stand a chance, but as is...

The townsfolk whispered to themselves. The ones I'd helped all looked over at me, staring at me in surprise. The old gruff man I'd guarded yesterday shook his head and turned away.

Ritsu clutched my tunic. "Rythin," she whispered.

I can't let Ritsu get caught in the crossfire. I have to keep my head about me and _think_ like Karasuma and Korosensei taught me. In this case...

"It's fine," I breathed. Hopefully none of my nervousness showed on my face. "Just stay here for a while, okay? There's got to be a chance when I can make a break for it, and then I'll be in Centoria. Once I find Kirito, I'll come back."

She stared at me, and then nodded once. "I'll wait for you. But only for a year, and then I'm coming to Centoria whether you're back or not."

"Thank you," I said.

Then, I stepped forward. Ritsu's hand brushed mine, then fell away.

The bindings they put around me were... maybe a little bit over-the-top? I mean, seriously, they really needed to put my arms behind my back and then fit a leather binder around my entire torso? Dakira had already taken my pitiful excuse for a weapon away at the start and what the hells was I going to do against a fully-armored opponent with my bare hands, after giving up entirely? It just made my arms cramp something awful. At least I could still move my fingers, and make a fun little gesture at the fat pig man when he smirked at me and tightened the straps more. Fuck, those are digging into my arms, you fat piece of -

With a flap of its wings, the dragon took off, and I very grumpily dangled from the chain attached to its neck in midair. Whaaaaat, is the back of the dragon too good for me? Nope. I'm dangled in the air like a fresh hunk of meat. Gods, this sucks. I hate this. Annoying. I can't even get a small amount of respect. Instead, I'm being hauled away, held up by a single iron chain and leather straps. At this rate, I almost _want the stupid things to break just so that I don't have to put up with this insult_!

Bleh. Stupid people not respecting me just because apparently I'm on death row or something like that. Jerks.

If I could, I'd totally make more rude gestures at them.

* * *

The trip only took a couple hours. _Only_. By the time I saw a massive column rising in the sky, I was more than ready for this dragon ride to be _over_. It wasn't even fun! I was just dangling from its neck, swaying back and forth as the dragon flew towards Centoria. The only thing that was keeping me even remotely entertained was watching the scenery pass under me; the land I was in was predominantly brown, with thin trees.

It was super unfair, too. The part to my left, across a long wall that stretched as far as I could see, was super green and inviting. Why couldn't I have landed in the northern part, huh?!

And the worst part of this was, even after the tower was visible, it was still another half hour or so with the pure white column growing larger every minute before we finally arrived. A pair of gates opened in the wall, lowering down. Huh. Dragon hanger. Neat.

Less neat was the way I got led down a bunch of steps, still in chains. They didn't even let me stretch my arms or anything like that. The large man that greeted us at the bottom of the stairs - it had to be at least 50 floors down from where we landed, if I had to guess - was bald with muscles bulging in his forearms. He and the Integrity Knight that was holding my 'leash' exchanged quiet words, before the Knight led me down the hall and shoved me into a dungeon cell. I glared at the two of them impartially while the jailer attached an iron cuff around my right wrist that had a length of chain that ended at an identical iron ring set in the wall. I tugged my arm experimentally carefully, and nope. That thing was _not_ moving.

The Integrity Knight left as soon as the iron and leather straps around my body were undone. The jailer left me alone a little bit later after that, leaving me alone in the cold cell to reflect on my sins or something like that. I sat down on the tough, uncomfortable cot and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. Hmm. This thing feels like they threw a brick down, stretched it out, and called it a day.

Yeah I'm going to break out of here as soon as I possibly can. I opened my hand for the first time since I left Ritsu and held up the little iron pins that she'd slipped into my palm. When did she even find time to pick up a pair of lockpicks? I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. Thank you, Ritsu, your gift is gratefully received.

For now, I needed to see about getting this manacle off me. The chain had enough slack that I could sit on the bed without worrying too much about having my arm dangle off the edge at an awkward angle, but it wasn't enough for me to, say, walk out of the room and head into Centoria proper. And since I absolutely had to walk out of the room and head into Centoria proper, it seemed like we were at a bit of an impasse. I tugged at the chain and watched it rattle against the wall. That end was probably too tough for me to do anything, so that left getting the manacle off of my wrist.

...I remember Korosensei teaching us about how to do this, but telling us it was never a good idea if we didn't have to.

Before I do anything stupid, though, I should give this a little bit of time to rest. I just arrived, so this is when they'll be most on-guard. I'm not going to make the same mistake as when E Class tried to break through the military cordon immediately. Instead, I'm going to sit back, relax, and wait patiently for my chance.

I hate this stupid bed, though. I bet if I looked at its Stacia window, it would have the 'Uncomfortable' Class. Grr.

...

**March 22nd, 379 HE**

I woke up from a light doze a day and a half into my captivity. I glanced up at the barred window set above the manacle in the wall and grimaced. It was nearly night, huh? Staying in this dungeon was wreaking havoc with my sleep schedule. Though, granted, this time I was actively trying to nap during the day and be awake later at night.

Without moving I listened hard, trying to catch any sounds of movement. Nothing came through from the window, but that wasn't my interest. Instead, I was listening to see if the guy in charge of delivering me meals was awake. This late... Mmm, I can't hear anything, but there's a non-zero chance he's just doing something else instead. I yawned and rolled over, staring at the stone walls.

Bored. Bored bored bored. This _sucks_.

It took about another half hour without hearing any signs of life before I felt comfortable making a move. The jailer was probably fast asleep by now. With the moonlight pouring through the bars, I sat up and cracked my neck. During my day and a half stay, I'd surreptitiously tested most of the ways Karasuma had mentioned to escape cuffs (Unfortunately, Korosensei's advice of 'Just wriggle your way free like an octopus! Blblblblbl!' wasn't very useful) but none of them had borne any fruit. Looks like my only option is...

Well, let's just say I'm glad they locked the manacle on my _right_ wrist.

"Gahhhhh...!" Okay! Okay, dislocating my thumb hurts! It hurts a lot! At least Karasuma taught me how to... ghhhh... do it right. It still feels like a shark with rubber teeth is gnawing at my hand, though!

I swallowed down the pain and slipped the manacle off of my arm. After I put the cuff on the pillow, careful to not let the chain clatter against the stone, I gritted my teeth and -

Fuck! It still hurts just as much popping back into place! It was more of a sharp pain this time, so despite the grunt that slipped out of my mouth I was able to get my hand back to normal. It's a good thing that deliberately lowering your own Life was forbidden by the Taboo Index, or I wouldn't have been able to abuse this loophole.

My breath was coming pretty quickly from the pain, so I took a few seconds to stop breathing so heavily. After the rhythm slowed down, I took one last deep breath and hopped to my feet. The lockpicks appeared in my hand from under the pillow, and I set to work finagling the lock -

It clicked and swung open, and I grinned. Easy. Now, to escape.

I slipped out of my cell and strolled down the hallway, my presence erased. The guard didn't so much as stir as I passed by him; he was fast asleep on a bed that looked only marginally more comfortable than mine. He was snoring away without a problem, despite the fact that he was the guard; my guess is, the sturdy chains were supposed to do the job of keeping people in place more than he was. Still, he _did_ have that spear next to him, but I didn't want to risk getting caught to steal a shitty spear like that. Plus I didn't really know how to use a polearm all that well - I'd played around with them in ALO a little bit, but nothing serious - and having an awkward weapon was worse than no weapon at all in my opinion.

More relevant to me, of course, meant that I didn't have a weapon while breaking out of here. Then again, I was an assassin. If I was dragged into a fight, I'd already screwed up. Telling myself that helped calm my nerves down a little bit while I hurried up the stairs. Nobody had come to visit me, but the Integrity Knight _had_ said I was to be executed. That could have happened at any time, and this stone stairway lit by torchlight was not my ideal place to fight.

Once I stepped out of the dungeons and out into the moonlight, I looked around. Huge wrought-iron fences lined the only path forward, with rose bushes on either side of me. Aside from the moonlight, the only light sources came from the little lamp obelisk things that didn't even come up to my waist. They lined the path, though, so I was able to keep moving without a care.

"Tch." I clicked my tongue as I came to an intersection. This thing was like a huge maze... Well, the huge tower was to my left, so I turned right and kept moving. My boots clicked on the cobblestone while I wandered through the maze. Great. I'm lost, I'm slightly tired, and I'm _hungry_. That last one was the most annoying, too. More than once I had to double-back after stumbling into a dead end.

After about thirty minutes of wandering around I stepped through a brick archway into a larger courtyard-like area. At last, progress! There was a fountain with a sculpture of a woman pouring water out of a jar; aside from Aquarius over there, it looked pretty normal. The kind of place people would stop to enjoy the flowers and rest in the pavilion in the center of the area. Nobody was here, fortunately, so I kept moving -

I froze as I was about to exit the area. A girl in armor was kneeling by the edge of the path and inspecting the roses; her golden armor gleamed in the moonlight and matched her hair. She hadn't noticed me and I reflexively made sure I'd erased my presence. That sword on her hip didn't look like it was for show. Run? Try to sneak past?

The choice was taken from me the instant it crossed my mind, because before I could do anything the girl stood up and turned. When she saw me, she stared for a few seconds in shock, her blue eyes wide.

"...Hey there, I'm a little lost," I said. "Mind showing me the exit?"

Her eyes narrowed and she placed her hand on the hilt of her sword. "I recognize you... You are the prisoner, brought in two days ago. How did you escape from that prison?"

I grinned. "Oh, y'know, just a little bit of creative thinking. Seriously though, do you mind showing me the way out? Thanks for the hospitality and all, but I have to head out."

"I cannot allow you to leave." The knight drew her sword. "I am Alice Synthesis Thirty, protector of the Axiom Church. You will be cut down if you refuse to obey me."

Alice, huh? Heh. That's neat. Her name is the same as that acronym RATH likes. But that was just an idle thought that flickered through my mind before my attention jumped to the gleaming blade in her hands. That thing looked pretty scary...

"Sorry, Alice," I said. "But I have to go see my brother, and I can't stick around!"

"So be it!"

I lunged forward, closing the distance as quickly as I could. She had advantage on range and _everything_, since she was wearing armor. Alice didn't hesitate to bring her sword back and thrust forward, trying to slash me. I dodged to the side and tucked into a roll as she twirled her blade with a flourish and slashed down. It was glowing - Sword Skill! I found my feet and ran immediately before Alice's blade smashed to the ground behind me. A spray of cobblestone shards pelted my back and I grinned.

"System Call!" Huh?! "Generate thermal element!" I glanced over my shoulder and yelped. Alice had raised a hand and her fingertips were glowing red, little red orbs with a yellow-orange glow sitting on her fingers. Thermal means hot, so I probably don't want to know what she's about to do. "Form element, arrow shape. Fly straight! Discharge!"

My eyes widened as the red lights on her fingers formed into long thin lines that probably resembled arrows if I took the time to look properly. As soon as she said 'Discharge', they flew straight towards me. They were way slower than bullets, though, so I was able to dance between the five red arrows. They exploded into flame on impact with the cobblestone behind me.

But if that's how it worked... "System Call!" I snapped, raising a hand. If I'm right, an orb will appear on my own hand - my eyes narrowed when only one light appeared on my thumb. Wonder why I only had one... "Generate thermal element! Form element, arrow shape. Fly straight! Discharge!" Like Alice's shot, my fire arrow launched towards Alice. She didn't even try to dodge; she simply slashed it down with her sword. The fire splashed against the golden-colored blade and dissipated without touching her. "Oh that's just not fair!"

Alice lunged towards me, her blade already aiming for my neck. I flipped backwards, her slashes just barely not catching me. Once I was upright, I ducked under the next blow and kicked out reflexively. My foot bounced off of her breastplate harmlessly and I staggered backwards. The Knight didn't hesitate to take advantage of this, shoving forwards -

\- But I grinned and crouched before she could knock me over. Her eyes widened as I grabbed her arm and used her momentum against her in a picture-perfect throw. She flipped over my shoulder and landed hard on the ground, hard enough to bounce from the impact. It forced the air from her lungs and she coughed harshly.

Before she could get to her feet again, I bolted down the path I'd been about to follow before running into Alice. "System call! Generate thermal element!" The rest of the chant came out quickly and I launched an arrow of fire at the prone girl.

"System call! Generate cryogenic element! Form element, bird shape! Counter thermal element! Discharge!" An explosion rang out behind me and I spared a second to look back. A cloud of steam obscured my vision, and I grumbled. Stupid countermagic... I guess it makes that ice would counter fire, though. I wish I knew the command list though!

If only something like that existed, maybe.

Alice burst through the steam faster than I expected, her sword glowing. Vorpal Strike-! I had to dodge to the side in a roll, but the edge of the blade still cut into my side. Gah! Unlike before, I _felt_ this one.

My hand came away from my side bloody, but it didn't seem to be very deep judging by the feel. I popped up to my feet and started running again. I just needed to get away from her, but no matter what I did Alice chased me down. I kept flinging thermal and cryogenic elements over my shoulder, but no matter what Alice would simply counter them with the opposing element. The other problem was, I was slowly bleeding from my side. A long, drawn-out battle would just end up with me collapsing from blood loss. So I had to escape...

As soon as I reached the next branch, I snapped off a quick thermal arrow and as expected, Alice countered with a bird-shaped cryogenic element. The steam expanded and I grinned before darting down the branch. As soon as I did, I took a deep breath and sprinted as fast as I could. I just needed to break line of sight as soon as possible -

"Generate umbra element. Adhere possession. Object ID -"

What? An _umbra_ element? So they have dark magic?

I had no idea what was going on until a small node of darkness floated towards me and left a purple-ish trail behind it. Oh crap! It's some sort of tracker! Sure enough, it followed me no matter how fast I ran, and Alice wasn't far behind. The stupid... I bet light magic would cancel it out or something, but I have no idea how to summon some!

Left, right, left, left again... I was taking turns more or less at random, Alice never far behind, and before long I turned a corner and realized the road in front of me ended at a rose bush. A dead end... Crap.

Before I could manage to double back and go the other way, Alice appeared and blocked the way. "Surrender," she gasped in between breaths. I guess I can't blame her for needing a break. She was keeping up with me in full armor, which was damn impressive.

My eyes darted left and right as I tried to figure out if there was an escape route, and no matter what I saw I couldn't find a path out of the corner. I'd screwed up, somewhere along the line. "...Fine, fine. I give."

Alice nodded once and approached me, her sword still out. Before she could do anything else, a rough voice rang out from above us. "Hold on there, little lady."

"Unc- Commander!" Alice turned around to stare up at the sky. I looked up myself to see a dragon with silver scales right above us. I covered my eyes with my forearm as its wings kicked up a breeze, swirling loose rose petals around while it landed. "I've successfully captured the prisoner," she said. "I was about to execute him for his crimes."

A man dismounted from the silver dragon and landed lightly on his feet next to Alice. "Sorry, but you can't do that yet. Administrator wants to see him." I studied the man carefully while he was talking to the golden knight. Tall, with large shoulders and a broad build; he was wearing a simple robe that left his chest bare. Despite the majestic dragon he'd rode in on, his scruffy beard, shaggy hair, and rough voice made him seem almost like a peasant way over his head instead of (I'm assuming) an Integrity Knight.

At least, he seemed like a peasant until his blue eyes flicked towards me. Every instinct in my body, every fiber of my training _shrieked_ at the pressure in that gaze. It was so intense that I slid into a ready stance without thinking about it and relaxed my body to spring into action. I still could fight bare-handed, but against someone this strong I'd need a knife to stand a chance.

"The Pontifex wishes to see this criminal?" Alice's voice held nothing but disbelief that she'd been ordered to let me live. After a long second, she nodded once and sheathed her golden sword. "Very well, then. Will you bring him up?"

"You too, Alice," the man said. "Orders were that anyone involved in his capture was to see her." He grinned. "Who knows? Maybe she's going to congratulate you on a job well done."

Alice looked away. "Hmph. I don't require praise to do my job." Oh that's a lie, I could see the theoretical cat ears on her head perk up at just the chance of earning praise.

...

The two Integrity Knights walked me through the rose maze and into the main tower; they at least had the decency to not bind my arms. When I'd asked, out of morbid curiosity, why not, the man had just given me a cocky smirk and said, "If you want to, go ahead and run. I'd just knock you down before you made it ten steps."

Alice, on the other hand, had scowled at me and rested her hand on her sword. The instant I tried to bolt, I knew that golden sword would be out of its sheath. Plus, it was easier to take in the scenery. Such as it was. This place was apparently called the Axiom Church Central Cathedral, and the interior decorators really had a taste for plain white. It was pretty boring to pass past white marble column after white marble column. Even that super gaudy hitman hotel back in Okinawa had been filled with color.

Fifty flights of stairs later, we passed through a huge wide-open room. I stared at the ceiling in awe. This place looked amazing, with murals on the ceilings showing three magnificent goddesses, if the number of people bowing and praying to them in the murals were any indication. Light poured through windows throughout the wide room, and the columns holding this place up were decorated with sculptures of the goddesses.

"Ah, this view never gets old," the man said. Bercouli, he'd given me his name. I have to try to remember that. "I love coming through here."

"Your favorite?" I asked as he led us down the center of the room towards a huge set of doors. As for why I was playing along with the conversation, well, if he wanted to play nice then I'd play along.

Bercouli laughed. "That honor goes to the baths on the 90th Floor. Nothing's better than coming back from a long mission and soaking my bones for hours."

"Mm." Man, now I want a hot shower. This sucks.

The room through those double doors had a very obvious circular gap in the center. Bercouli and Alice stopped in front of it. I looked back and forth between the two of them. ...What are we waiting for? Some magic thing?

My unspoken question was answered about ten seconds later as something descended from above with a green glow. It slowed to a halt and settled neatly in the hole left for it. An elevator, or something like it through magic? A woman in a simple dress stepped away from the glass cylinder in the center of the disc. "I apologize for the wait," she said in a voice that was so flat it was almost monotone.

Bercouli and Alice stepped onto the platform, so I followed them. "All the way up to the top," he told her.

"Right away, sir Integrity Knight." The woman walked back over to the glass thing and held her hands out. "System call. Generate aerial element. Burst." Glowing green lights appeared in the glass tube and floated around, until one fell down. The elevator suddenly launched into motion, soaring upwards at a rapid pace. I shifted my weight awkwardly until the pressure eased off a little bit.

Once we were up on the 80th floor, since apparently that's as high as the elevator went, we were back on foot. What was nice, however, was that the floors were actually different at all instead of just taking staircase after staircase like the lower fifty floors. The 80th floor looked like someone had transplanted a small hill from the countryside into the tower, with a small stream winding its way through the lower area. It was... pretty peaceful, all things considered. Alice clearly thought the same, because a small happy sigh escaped her lips as we walked down the brick path.

The 95th floor was where I blinked in surprise. It was exposed to the air, with several chairs and tables. It almost looked like you could sit and watch the city from above, here. But more importantly, there was enough room for a dragon to if not land, at least hover to drop passengers off.

"If you don't mind a question?" I asked while we climbed the thin stairs leading up. Bercouli shrugged. "Why didn't we take the dragon up? It would have saved a lot of time and some steps."

"Unfortunately, it's not that simple," Alice said. She was following her uncle's lead on everything including being somewhat decent to me. "No dragons can fly beyond the landing platforms on the 30th floor. Not even my unc- Not even Commander Bercouli's is allowed." There might have been an amused snort from Bercouli, but when I looked at him the man was simply staring ahead and climbing the face without any expression on his face. Suspicious... "Even the birds stay away. The pontifex herself made it so - she cast a Sacred Art so advanced that even I do not know it."

'Even I'? Either this girl is full of herself, or she's a very talented magic user. Either way, it explained the long walk.

The staircase opened up onto another... veranda? Would that be the word? The center of the landing was filled with more roses, and the only exit was a single hallway with glowing green chandeliers spaced regularly. Finally, we stopped in front of an ornate door with large blue and green gems set in it. The iron door seemed almost like a bunch of circular plates overlapping each other...

"Integrity Knights are forbidden from the 96th floor and above unless called by the pontifex or the Prime Senator," Alice said. "I've never been up this high before."

The iron door creaked open, and I caught a glimpse of a white circular room before something else caught my eye. "Phwoooo hoo ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ooh hoo hoo ha ha hoo!"

I stared. "Is that... a bouncing ball? That's laughing?" Bercouli and Alice didn't reply, but both straightened up.

The cackling ball bounced towards us and just before it landed, the ball unfolded in midair. When it landed, a tiny, fat man in a bizarre clown costume stood there with his hands clasped behind his back. His clothes were utterly hideous; his shirt was red on the left and blue on the right, while his pants flipped those colors' sides and the socks flipped them back so that the final appearance was like a massive checkerboard pattern that assaulted my eyes without mercy. A huge white collar around his neck fanned out like a snowflake and he wore a massive black hat that stretched out over his rotund little face.

But most disturbing of all was the chalk-white color of his skin. I knew I was pale, but that was ridiculous! He looked like he'd been made from the pillars and walls downstairs, except instead of stone he had piggy eyes and rolls of fat.

"Ahh, the wonderful Integrity Knights have successfully captured the intruder," he proclaimed as he applauded. He put his whole arm into each clap too. Maybe he was so fat he couldn't properly move his hands? "I, Prime Senator Chudelkin, will bring him to the pontifex." So this clown was the Prime Senator, huh? I wonder if the rest of the senators were clowns-in-training.

"Before you go," Bercouli said, "we were told that the pontifex wanted to see everyone involved in this brat's capture."

"Not a brat," I grumbled under my breath.

Chudelkin's lips spread into a wide, disgusting grin. "Oh, yes, yes, how could I have forgotten? System call!" Eh? "Deep Freeze! Integrator Unit, ID Zero Zero One!"

A beam of purple and red light erupted around Bercouli. He grunted in surprise as a grey line started from his feet and worked its way upwards, leaving behind ice in its wake. The light disappeared when its work was done and only a frozen statue of Bercouli remained.

Alice gasped and drew her sword. "Commander! What did you just do, you horrible -"

"System call! Deep Freeze! Integrator Unit, ID Zero Three Zero!" Alice lunged as soon as Chudelkin started chanting, but she wasn't fast enough. Another beam of light made short work of Alice, freezing her in place with the tip of her sword centimeters from his round chest.

What... was going on? Was he on my side? Did I _want_ to be on the same side as this gross piece of shit?

Chudelkin's gold eyes studied me, and I flexed my hands. If he opened his mouth and started chanting, I could probably reach him in time... "Well now, it seems that old geezer brought quite the interesting pawn." He hopped into the air and spun around, landing on his feet with the tinkle of bells. When he walked forward, into the white room, he did so in large exaggerated steps that lifted his legs up to nearly parallel with the floor. "Come along now, the pontifex herself has asked to meet you."

I licked my lips and glanced back and forth at the two statues flanking me, and then walked forward.

* * *

**What's this? What's this? It's a quicker way of getting to the central cathedral, at any rate.**

**Most of the information about the western part of the Human Empire is made up from whole cloth. As of the time writing this chapter, it's never been a focus of the anime or light novels and the game set in the Underworld hadn't been released; even if/when information comes out, I probably won't come back and fix it. Just assume this is a different variant of the Underworld because Nick worked at RATH to explain any mistakes.**

**Beyond that… I hope everyone likes Ritsu! She's fun to write, at least. She's just… new to this whole 'being human' thing. It doesn't help that the only person she knows just got taken away by a dragon… Well, Nick should be able to wrap up his business, go grab Ritsu, and then search for Kirito. Maybe the pontifex will help him!**

**Many thanks to everyone that favorited, followed, or reviewed.**

**(Also hey Dakira is one of the canon Knights, and her breach of the Taboo Index was 'I have romantic feelings for another girl'. Making LGBT stuff illegal isn't cool with me, so I'm going to just retcon her breach of the Taboo Index to 'broke something at a store but had no money and so ran away instead of paying for it'. She's still gay, that's just perfectly OK under the Estoc-revised Taboo Index.) (None of this will be relevant… ever? But I still wanted to say it.)**


	3. Integrity Knights

**Chapter 3: Integrity Knights**

* * *

**March 22nd, 379 HE**

"Come along now, the pontifex herself has asked to meet you." Chudelkin strode through the ornate door in large exaggerated steps that lifted his legs up until they were nearly parallel with the floor.

I licked my lips. This... was probably an awful idea. This shitty clown was a hundred and ten percent evil, that much was clear. He was a clown, after all. Plus, to make things even _more_ obvious, he'd frozen both Bercouli and Alice right in front of me. But still, I definitely wasn't going to be able to make it out of the tower by myself. It was way too big, and if I ran then I'd probably have another twenty-eight Integrity Knights trying to chase me down.

After one last glance at the two statues flanking me, I walked forward into the white room.

I stopped in my tracks almost immediately. "What the _fuck_." My jaw dropped at what I saw. And heard.

The room itself was circular and almost entirely white; aside from fluorescent lights that lined the wall and floor, the only color that I could see was the awful riot of clashing blue and red from that fat clown directly in front of me. That, however, wasn't the reason I was so shocked. Along the wall, from where it met the floor to the ceiling I could barely see and all the way around, metallic nodules protruded from the walls. Inside them were... I swallowed. I could only see pale faces with no pupils, so pale that I wasn't sure they had any skin color entirely. Every nodule held another person, and every person talked non-stop, their words overlapping. I focused on the closest one and could just barely manage to make out the words they'd said.

"...System Call. Display Rebelling Index."

I recognized them! The bald head with milky white eyes... That was the thing that had shown up and babbled about breaking the Taboo Index when I'd been forced to kill the wolf that attacked me. Speaking of... The color of their skin, it matched Prime Senator Chudelkin's chalk-white complexion perfectly. Were these, these _faces_ underlings of his?

A shrill bell and a loud warning claxon both sounded at the same time, hurting my ears, and all of the faces stopped talking. "Oooh hoo hoo hoo," Chudelkin cackled. "It's feeding time, I see, I see!" I watched with disgusted horror as thin tubes slid down from the ceiling of the faces' cages and started pouring glop directly into their mouths. After about ten seconds of gulping down the mush, the tubes rose back up and the constant repeating Sacred Art chants started up again.

"What the _fuck_," I repeated.

"Aaaaah! No! No no no no no!" Chudelkin cried suddenly. He flailed around, twisting his body and clutching at his head. "The pontifex ordered me to bring her the boy before the next feeding cycle! Those miserable knights wasted so much time! Number one, number thirty! I'll have to punish them for it later!" He turned back to me and I tensed up. The gleaming yellow eyes that looked at me now didn't have any trace of humor in them. "You'd better hurry up and follow me. I can't be late!"

Well, I already knew they were evil. Then again, Bercouli and Alice had clearly hated him on sight so maybe the Integrity Knights weren't that bad after all. I wonder if they'd switch sides if I brought them Chudelkin's head? Hmm, food for thought.

Chudelkin trotted much faster now and led me to a room that looked like the world's messiest child lived there. Stuffed animals and toys littered the floor, and every color of paint that existed had to be splashed somewhere. The walls were orange and red, the two dressers were lilac and blue, and green and pink... It looked like a clown had thrown up in here, especially with the polka dots, massive bed, and awful carpet. Looking at the lines and shapes of everything, _I_ was the straightest thing in the room. "Ghiii... I wanna play!" Chudelkin whined. "But my lady is waiting for me!"

Oh. It's his room. Of _course_ it's his room, how could I have been so foolish.

Chudelkin gnashed his teeth. "Guhh... Ghhhhh... Graaaaaah!" After letting out a scream like he was a child that had just been told 'no', he stomped over to the lime-green dresser by the wall. I blinked when he shoved at the weirdly-shaped object and it swung open without a sound. A secret door?

From there, I followed him up a flight of steps. It was only lit by a few golden lights set along the wall, and it had to be at least two... no, three flights of stairs until we finally emerged into the light at the top. The room I stood in was totally empty, with ornate crosses decorating the wall and floor. If I'd been on the 96th floor and had gone up three flights, then that meant...

The 100th floor was right above me.

Why? Why is it one hundred floors? Does Cardinal have a fetish for that number or something?!

The only thing on the floor was a raised circle, and directly above it a hole in the ceiling. Chudelkin walked over to it and waved at me. "Hurry up already! You stinking brat," he grumbled. "Kuhhh, I'm going to be in so much trouble! Sacred Art! Generate Aerial element!"

With Chudelkin's magic, the circular plate that we were standing on lifted into the air. It slid right through the hole in the floor and raised up until it was flush with the 100th floor. I looked around in awe, staring at the high, domed ceiling. The whole thing was a colorful mural, depicting two winged women; the blue-haired one was holding a bow, and the blonde one a glowing green sword. It looked like they were fighting some shadowy figure made of purple lightning. Aside from the clouds and stars on the blue sky, a white dove carried a single piece of wheat in its beak.

The rest of the cathedral was less enthralling than the ceiling; it was the very top of the tower and so the room itself was round, with different weapons chained to the wall at a regular interval. Between the pillars holding the weapons were massive glass panes that revealed the world stretching out; we were above the clouds, and the crescent moon floated in the sky with hundreds of stars clustered in the sky.

And, in the center of the room, illuminated by the moonlight streaming down from the giant circle in the ceiling, was a bed. It was a fancy bed, with luxurious red curtains hiding the inside from my view. It sat on a rich crimson carpet that stretched towards the wall, larger than any I'd seen in the real world.

"My lady," Chudelkin called out. "I, er, I've brought the criminal to you." His eyes gleamed. "Just as you ordered. I had to Freeze a few of the Integrity Knights, the traitors."

"...Oh, very well. Which ones were they?"

Chudelkin replied, but I didn't listen to him. I was too busy reeling from the voice I'd just heard. Objectively, I could tell it was a woman's voice. But there was something about what I'd just listened to that tempted me to listen harder and let myself go. It was curiously hypnotic, and somewhere inside of my chest I craved to hear her talk more.

A craving that was fulfilled moments later. "Come closer," the woman said. "Let me see your face."

I noted Chudelkin bouncing back to the disc and leaving the room, but it was a distant part of me. Most of my attention was on the shadowed figure inside the bed curtains. I hesitated at the edge of the bed, but I'd been invited, so I brushed the curtain aside.

My eyes widened as I took in the sight in front of me. Immediately, I turned my head to the side, but I couldn't control the sharp inhale when I saw the woman's naked body. It wasn't like I'd never seen a girl naked; I'd spent the night at Kana's house often enough that sooner or later it was inevitable that I'd walk into her bathroom at the wrong time just after she'd gotten out of the shower. She'd been embarrassed, but it was a funny story to tease her about.

But... the woman on the bed... She was simply lounging on top of the bed sheets, nestled among the pillows. The only thing keeping her modest was her long purple hair covering her breasts and her...

I coughed again.

"I am Administrator," she said. "The pontifex and ruler of the Axiom Chuch. You poor child... you seem tired. Why don't you sit down?"

Before I knew it, I was kneeling on the wonderfully soft bed. "What do you want with me?" I asked.

Her lips curved in a smile. "I know that you come from... the other side. The realm of the gods." The realm of the - Is she talking about the real world?! How does she know that!

Still, it was helpful. "If that's the case, then you understand I can't stay here," I said. "I have something I need to do. Sorry, but being in jail isn't helpful."

"You poor child," she said. "To be burdened with such a task... But you have broken the Taboo Index, the laws that govern this world. A suitable punishment for the crime must be given."

"Hey, I was already arrested."

"And you broke free. Delaying my rest." I winced. I'd made her stay up later? Whoops. That was unfortunate. "But you truly are unfortunate, aren't you? A sapling, bent in the wind."

"...A sapling?"

"You know it yourself," she said. "How you feel the weight of expectations. How you just want to... sleep."

I inhaled sharply. Calm down, Rythin. She's just cold-reading you. You know that. You know how it works. It didn't make it easier to ignore the accuracy of her words, though. "Sleep?"

"I could grant you that," she said. "All of your burdens, gone. The selfish humans that forced you to bear them... They wouldn't matter anymore."

My fingers clutched at the silky bed sheets. "That's a lie," I snapped. "I took them willingly! Nobody made me bear anything. Everything I've done, I've done for them!"

"Was it, now?" Her voice still held that strange hypnotic quality but it twisted in mockery. "I can see the strain in your body. Your soul cries out for comfort, but you ignore it entirely. Those people you're helping... Why would they not take advantage of you?"

"Liar," I growled. "They're not taking advantage. They aren't..." Damn it, why was it so hard to focus on this? Kana had come to see me. Shino had taken care of me when I was injured. It wasn't like they were just making sure their tool was useful! Right?

Administrator smiled peacefully. "No? What do you think would happen if you were to fall apart doing what they want? Would they smile and tell you, 'It's okay'? Or would they scowl at you and curse you for being useless? After all, if you can't do what they want, surely they'd find someone that _can_."

No... They're not. They're my family. I call them my sisters and my brother. "They're... my family," I protested.

Was that true, though? They'd only ever said that I was their brother when they wanted something from me. Could I really believe that they wanted me around?

N-No. Stop. You know it's not like that. You know they love you. This is all just depression and paranoia talking. You're good at this. You've gone through this enough times that you're _good_ at depression. Just shut out the dark thoughts, crush them down.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "They're my family," I repeated.

"But is that really true?" Administrator's body disappeared like it was made of smoke. "You've forgotten," she whispered. The words were breathed in my ear from directly behind me. "Deep in your heart, you remember."

I whirled to look at her, but the world faded away into darkness. I struck at where Administrator had been, but my fists only struck air as the world bloomed into color. What-

"Ya make it real hard sometimes." My eyes widened as I watched Kana, her face red with anger, turn on her heel and storm off. This was... back several months ago, during... My stomach twisted just thinking about that horrible time.

A flash of color, and I was staring at Kazuto and Asuna laughing happily with the probe on her shoulder.

A flash of color, and I stared at Kana, grinning smugly at Rika while the freckled girl handed her some fries.

A flash of color, and I sat at my desk while Kana left, not even looking back at me.

I was totally useless to them, and they hadn't noticed at all. The second I couldn't offer them anything, they abandoned me-

"Stop! Please..."

I fell forward onto the bed, barely keeping myself up with my hands. My whole body was covered in sweat, like I'd just run a marathon in boiling temperatures.

"Do you understand now?" Administrator asked me, still behind me. "They don't truly love you. They only care what you can give them." Slender arms draped across my shoulders as she pressed her soft body against my back. "But I'm different, Rythin. I'm not selfish like they are. I'll give my heart to you."

"To... me...?" I shivered at the words. At the promise in those words.

Behind me, Administrator stood up and walked around in front of me. Her nude body was on full display as she extended her hand to me. "Now come to me, Rythin," she said. "Come to me and you can experience the joy of always being loved. I will be your family. The more deeply you love me, the greater pleasure I can give you!"

That's... love? That's family?

Something in my mind stirred at the thought, rebelling at the thought. It's not like that, Nick! I could almost picture a beautiful girl with messy mouse-brown hair, reaching her hand out for me. But before I could reach her, a shimmering wall of purple and blue circuits slide into place between us, cutting off her voice from reaching me.

That's not what family is! We don't trade favors like money, we help each other when we need it! A girl with black hair and glasses stood to my right. She was... precious to me... But when I took a step forward towards her, another wall blocked her from me and cut off her voice.

I turned again to see a boy with messy black hair, but before I could even move a third wall severed him from me. His mouth moved like he was saying something, but I was... alone. In a triangular prism, all by myself.

Administrator held out her hands, and I reached for her hand. When my fingers touched hers, she pulled me forward and I felt myself pitch forward to land on her body without resistance.

"You want this, Rythin," she breathed into my ear. "But I can't give you all I have to offer yet. Like I've said, you need to give me your love first. Simply repeat after me... Think only of me, as you offer yourself to me. Now first, start a Sacred Art."

"System...call." My mouth moved without me really saying it on purpose.

Was this... the best thing I could do? Just give in, entrust myself to her?

"Very good, Rythin." Her hand stroked my hair. "Now, the rest: «Remove Core Protection»."

"«Remove»..."

Why wouldn't I give myself to her? I was alone, so tired of being alone. The people I thought were my family... They had just been lying to me.

"«Core»..."

...

...No.

I'd come this far by not trusting a single godsdamn thing I ever thought about myself or my family. I _knew_ that I couldn't trust my thoughts about anyone. I didn't understand family, but that didn't matter. Was I going to listen to her?

No.

How dare she try to come between me and the woman I loved? How dare she come between me and my family?! Asuna and the others loved me. They showed it every moment of every day by just asking me to be myself. They didn't demand obedience. They didn't ask me to do things for them. I just helped because I wanted to. And the same in return; I didn't offer my help because I expected something in return, I didn't demand they loved me. I knew that.

And I was going to listen to this _bitch_ tell me they were wrong, that they didn't love me?

NO!

The prism shattered as I clenched a fist and then punched myself in the face, hard. It hurt. But the pain was sharp and real, and cut through the haze her voice had cast over me. I pulled back, ripped my hand free from Administrator's, and threw myself as far from the bed as I could.

I landed on the carpet and rolled. For a second, I just laid there on the carpet with my cheek, but I slowly pushed myself to my feet. My knees shook, but I glared defiantly at Administrator.

"_**Fuck you**_," I snarled.

"How dare you!" The woman's beautiful face twisted into an ugly scowl. "You reject me?"

I made a rude gesture, then mirrored it with my other hand. "I would rather face god and walk backwards into hell. You _utter_ _**bitch**_."

"This close... This close to having a servant of the other realm...! But you had to refuse the synthesis ritual!" She waved a hand. "System call! Paralyze Unit ID WWD6-6321!" The chant took effect immediately, and I felt an all-too-familiar feeling in my body as every muscle locked up. This was more than ALO's in-game paralysis status effect. This was actually as though a switch in my brain had been turned off and I was nothing more than a meat puppet.

Naturally my body collapsed, and I stared helplessly up at Administrator. "Chudelkin!" she snapped.

"Yes, Your Excellency?" The clown had the nerve to hop out and land on my body, standing on top of me. "Whatever is the matter?"

"The boy refused the voluntary synthesis," she said. "Pull the senators from observation duty and use the forced synthesis ritual."

Forced... synthesis ritual? If it had something to do with that «Remove Core Protection» thing she nearly had me chant, then this was bad. Core protection... Whatever that was, it was probably important. I didn't want to lose it!

"With pleasure!" Chudelkin's awful curled boots stepped on my chest and a choked breath was forced out of me before the clown grabbed my arm with surprising strength. From there, I didn't have the ability to resist as he started dragging me back through the long flight of steps.

"Oooh hoo hoo ha ha!" Chudelkin cackled. "I can't believe it! You shitty brat... I'm going to love watching you scream as we pry open the door to your precious memories! What a wonderful day! Will you make better expressions than that little girl?"

Little girl? Were they talking about... Alice?

"It's such a rare thing, that only the most rebellious brats force us to do! We have to pause the automated senators and use a three-day ritual!" He was explaining this on purpose, I knew. Just to make me squirm. He leered down at me and licked his lips. "I still think about the face that Alice made when we stole it away from her, those tears streaming down her face! Begging desperately to go back to Rulid with her friends... But now she's an Integrity Knight, bound to serve the pontifex's will! When I think about it, I stay up all night laughing! Hoo hoo hoo ha haha!"

This piece of shit clown... I don't even know her, but if he's taking such glee in the blonde knight's suffering then I'd gladly destroy him! As soon as I could move my body again...

When we reached the automated senator's room, Chudelkin threw me down in the center of the room. I had to watch as the clown spun around and danced his way through the room, chanting a bunch of Sacred Arts that silenced the creepy pale faces. Then, once they'd all fell silent, Chudelkin spouted more words and they started chanting in unison once again.

This time, though, my body started to hover in place as purple light surrounded me. It held me motionless aside from the slightest up and down bobbing, like I'd been suspended in water. While purple arcs of energy crackled around me, that fucking clown danced and spun around and cackled some more.

...

Three days.

The nonstop chanting had lasted three days, and I hadn't been able to sleep at all as I felt myself becoming weaker and weaker. The exhaustion was bone-deep and something inside of me was becoming... loose.

Ritsu... Wait for me, alright? Whatever they're doing to me, I'm going to break free. Once I'm an Integrity Knight I'll have a dragon just like Alice and the other one, and then I'll fly back to the city to get you. Khh... Finding you will be tough, but just wait for me like you promised...

Shi-Shino. Would you be proud of me? I did my b-b-best to have faith in myself, but when it didn't work out I still, still had faith in you and the others. I hope you'd be proud.

Kana... Kana... Kana... Kana... Kana... I love you.

It was so, so hard to, think. But even through the, haze I saw, Chudelkin leer at, me. "Fuck... you," I growled.

His offended look made my lips curl into a satisfied smile before something inside me cracked -

\- and my eyes closed, fast asleep -

...

* * *

**July 6, 2026, 7:15 AM**

Asuna leaned forward and pressed her hands to the glass panel separating us from our two idiots, and I couldn't help but smile when I saw the glittering ring on her left hand. We couldn't enter the STL room, of course; not without the special permission we'd obtained yesterday to visit Nick. But we could still look through the reinforced glass and stare through it. My friend's eyes wouldn't leave the motionless form of her boyfriend, and I stared just as intently at Nick.

The only light in the room came from the glowing machine and gave his skin an even paler glow than usual. He would always joke that it was a good thing it didn't snow much because he would go outside and I wouldn't be able to see him through the snowflakes. The stupid STL machine... Somehow, it felt like Nick's skin was so pale it was made of cold, fragile porcelain. I already wanted to hug him again, feel his warmth.

It'd been just under twelve hours since I'd seen him, but it felt like ages already. "Hey, Nick," I whispered after I pressed my forehead to the glass just like Asuna. "Miss ya already..." How long has it been for him? At least two months, according to what he'd told me. "Least yer comin' home soon. Only a few more days, 'kay?"

He's in the Underworld right now, helping Kazuto. I'm sure, the two of them together will be able to overcome any challenge at all.

"I wish they'd let me Dive in there with you," Asuna said to Kazuto, so quietly I barely heard her voice. "Maybe I could get you out..."

I closed my eyes. That way, when I felt the cool glass against my face, I could pretend it was Nick's hand instead. After a second, I let out a sigh and pulled away. No matter how much I wanted to get in there, without someone to let us in we weren't getting through the door. "...Ready?" I asked Asuna. She looked at me and smiled faintly, a tired smile on her lips, before we turned and walked away from the single glimpse we could get of our two boys.

Between the two of us we'd probably managed to get about a full night of sleep, but when Asuna and I turned the corner and started to climb the steps up to the main control room where we met Kikuoka it felt so different from that that I couldn't help but snicker. "Doesn' feel so tirin' now, huh?" I asked Asuna.

She smiled back at me. A little bit of the worry in her eyes had faded away after seeing Nick alive and more than well, but of course she was still worried about Kazuto. I'd caught her twisting that engagement ring early in the morning, before she'd noticed I was awake. "Not this time," she said. "I think a good night's sleep helped."

"Good, huh..." I can't say I agree with her all that much. The bed wasn't exactly, well, it wasn't _my_ bed and that made all the difference. "Eh, maybe. Excited f'r later, A-chan?"

"Of course," she said. "They'll be awake tomorrow. I hope..."

According to Aki, at the rate Kazuto's brain network was recovering, he should wake up within a day or two. That was perfect; my excuse to my mom, to get her to let me come here, was, 'I'll be accompanying the professor and observing the research facility of a cutting-edge corporation for a few days. It's the one where Nick works' in order to match Asuna's story to _her_ mother. Still, it only earned us a meager three days, from the 5th to the 7th. According to our schedule, we'd have to leave on the helicopter tomorrow evening. Hopefully, that'd be enough time for the boys to wake up so we could talk in the real world.

It wasn't certain, though, and there was definitely the possibility we were going to have to go home without getting to talk to them again. One look at Asuna's face told me that she was worried about that possibility, the way her eyes were lost in thought even as she walked up the stairs without thinking.

A stocky figure started tromping down the stairs on a direct course for us, clanking with each step. Asuna didn't seem to notice a thing, so when we were on the larger intermediate platform halfway up the stairs I stepped to the side and tugged her arm to get her out of the way. "Excuse me," she murmured absently, sparing just a glance up before her eyes fell back to the ground. "Mobs shouldn't spawn on the staircases, that's... wait..." she half-whispered.

I blinked at her. "...Eh?"

The clanks and whirring started up again as soon as we stepped past the person, and I started giggling. "What?" Asuna asked me. "Kana, what's so -" Her eyes opened wide as she realized what she'd seen, and she whirled around to stare at the huge boxy robot that was happily tromping its way down the steps. She must be exhausted.

The silhouette was human enough, but the skeletal structure was just a metal frame, with plastic cylinders mounted on the limbs and waist. The joints were exposed gears, and signal cables crept over all the thing's body like they were blood vessels. It had a large box on its back and a 'face' that had three lenses, each of a different size. They almost looked like eyes, if any two of them had been the same size.

"Uh... ah... a robot!" she gasped, her voice hoarse.

As soon as she said something, the robot froze mid-step and my smile dropped abruptly as my snickers died in my throat. The whirring shifted pitches and it started walking _backwards_ up the steps! "Eep!" Asuna squeaked and clutched my arm tightly. I deny doing the same thing to her. And I wouldn't sell the truth not even for a million yrd!

The robot halted once it was on the same intermediate platform we were on, and it turned around one part at a time, head first and then body. I remembered every movie I'd seen where the robots went berserk, and even though Nick had assured me they were all nonsense I didn't really care at the moment because _the robot was listening to us_. And _staring_ too, with the larger of the lenses zooming in and out to focus on our faces. Our scared faces were reflected in the lens.

We moved together, jumping back and pressing our backs against the wall to give the robot more space. Asuna and I let out quiet whimpers as the robot's head swiveled towards us, and we both sidled to the side to get away from it. But it wouldn't stop tracking us, taking another step closer before its lenses refocused.

Oh god Skynet is going to kill us.

Another whimper snuck out of my throat as I tried to get my heart to slow down, but it wouldn't stop _staring_ and I prepared to bolt with Asuna at the first sign of aggression, our terrified faces reflected in the lens -

"Hey!" Asuna and I gasped and looked up at the top of the steps, where the sharp bark had come from. Higa stood there, hands on his hips. "You're scaring them, Ichiemon!"

I watched him walk down the steps towards us, my eyes still flicking back at the robot to not miss a single move it might make. Fortunately, it seemed to have frozen as soon as he said something. As for the man himself, he looked like he did yesterday; shorts and a T-shirt matched the thick metal-framed glasses he wore. Way more casual than the dress shirt, nice pants, and pumps Asuna and I were wearing. ...Lucky.

"Wh-what did you call this thing just now?" Asuna asked weakly, pointing at The Terminator that was still staring at us.

"His name, what else?" Higa laughed. "He's Ichiemon." The robot finally stopped staring at us and turned its head to focus on the blond man. I licked my lips as I swallowed in relief, and Asuna's shoulders relaxed. "An Electroactive Muscled Operative Machine, or EMOM. He's also the first of his type, so we added the 'Ichi' at the top." He smirked and pointed at us. "Ichiemon, get it?"

I blinked a few times, before sighing. Another stupid acronym... It didn't help my patience that his expression slowly shifted from apologetic to boastful as he explained. "Guess Ichiemom doesn't roll off th' tongue as easy..."

Asuna's expression looked like I felt as she asked, "And what is this Ichiemon doing on board?" The way her voice raised as she asked the question told me that he'd better have a really good answer for scaring the crap out of us.

"Well, we're sorta-"

"I'm using it to fine-tune a program, and Higa here is giving me a hand with it." Higa, Asuna and I all looked up at the top of the steps. Professor Rinko stood there, silhoutted by the bright light of the main monitor. "We're lab partners again, just like in college," she said with a smile.

Asuna giggled and answered the woman's smile with one of her own. "Good morning," she said.

"Morning," I waved.

"Morning, Asuna, Kana," Professor Rinko said. "Did you two sleep well?"

I exchanged a quick glance with Asuna, and then spread my hand out palm-down and wiggled it back and forth in the universal sign for 'Eh, kinda'. "So's," I added, "I take it this guy's part 'a Project Alice or whatever too?"

...

Asuna and I followed Higa and his robot up the stairs - because even though it seemed perfectly safe I remembered that look in its eye and there was _no way it was standing behind me_ \- and sort of just stood around. Without Kikuoka here to piss us off, the main control room seemed kinda empty. Asuna stared up at the main screen, which was showing a huge white tower.

"Your problem is its balancer processor runs slow," Rinko said. "Can't you buy a faster chip?"

I glanced over at them to see that Higa and the professor had fallen into whatever seats were available once Ichiemon stopped moving around, so Rinko was in a chair while Higa sat on one of the nearby desks. The motionless robot stood by their side. Scowling at it, I made the 'I'm watching you' gesture at it.

"It's not like you don't have the budget to," Rinko continued.

"Yeah, but cooling and battery drain would still be a problem," Higa replied. "Considering that, this is the best we could do. One other option would be to tune the EAP actuator to pick up the slack," he said, scratching at his forehead.

Rinko waved a hand at Ichiemon. "Sure, but the polymer muscles are last-gen, so there's that. Upgrade to CNTs, they'll take the strain better _and_ make it lighter."

Asuna blinked a few times. "Do ya have any idea what they're talkin' 'bout, A-chan?" I whispered to her.

"Not really..."

The long-haired beauty seemed just as bemused by all this as I was. Though it was a lot like how Nick and Kazuto got when they're discussing some project or another, except when it was my boyfriend and his best guy friend, they were kinda cute. Here, I just tilted my head and stared.

When we approached the chatting scientists, Rinko turned around. "We're in our own world over here," she said with a smile. "Sorry about the noise."

"That's okay," Asuna giggled. "If Kirito were here, he'd get a big kick out of this robot of yours."

"Actually, we're building this because the Commandante wanted us to," Higa said.

"Kikuoka did?" Asuna gasped. "What for?"

Asuna looked at the robot again, and I peered at the Terminator myself. Standing like this, it didn't seem _too_ scary... Though I guess it was weird that they were making an advanced robot when they were trying to develop an AI. The two _have_ to be connected somehow, so... Wait, were they trying to make a -

"A real world body for th' Fluctlight that's matured in th' Underworld, right?" I asked. The conclusion held up, and the path led from start to goal. They wanted to have AIs in the real world, so obviously they'd need something for the AI to use as its body. Unlike Yui and Din, they wouldn't be able to just live in the virtual world.

"It's a neat idea, actually," Rinko said. "But I'm not sure how serious he is about it yet."

Asuna stared at Ichiemon. "S-So, wait. The plan is to put the AIs into... that?"

I snickered. "Nyahaha! Don't be so mean ta poor Ichiemon, A-chan, yer gonna hurt 'is feelings!"

But yeah. Yui and Din would absolutely, a hundred percent chance refuse to enter a body like that. It wouldn't even be worth betting any Yrd on it!

"I'm very sorry," Asuna bowed to the robot, before she looked at me and the two of us burst into giggles.

"Not this guy," Higa said and waved his hand back and forth. "He's just for data collection. We have a second robot with on-board AI that's way more advanced! He operates a heck of a lot smoother."

"Oh, you don't say," Asuna said. Then she sighed. "I wonder what you decided to call _that_ one," she said in the tone of someone who already knows the answer but has to ask the question anyway.

Higa looked at the two of us and grinned widely. He threw up two fingers. "Niemon, of course!" he and I said simultaneously.

Okay, now I think I get what Nick was saying when he was ranting about their sense of naming. This was ridiculous.

"Of course, because 'ni' means two..." Asuna shook her head. "Anyway, uh - why does having on-board AI in this other robot make it better?"

Rinko didn't answer right away, but got to her feet. She lifted one of her feet off of the ground and wobbled back and forth, arms outstretched. "For us to balance," she said, "our brains make lots of microadjustments." I blinked and popped one foot up in the air myself. Hey, this was fun! "To replicate that mechanically would take a lot of tech. And a bigger body to house it all in."

"Ah, I gotcha," I said while Rinko took her seat again. I wobbled and nearly toppled over before latching onto Asuna for support. "So if th' driver was a Fluctlight 'stead of a program, they'd be 'xactly like a human an' save some space on all the tech."

"Bingo," Higa said. "And the smaller the tech inside, the closer it can look like a human body. Or so we hope... For now, it's still a work in progress. Niemon's coming along, though! He's looking pretty human!" He grinned. "Well, his silhouette does, anyway."

"And maybe one of these days I'll get to see the damn thing..." Rinko's eyes widened and she turned to stare at Higa. "Wait - You haven't gotten it to walk around on its own yet, have you?"

"What?! No, of course I haven't!" Higa shrugged. "His CPU's all loaded up and ready to go, but no one's home to work the controls, if you get my drift."

Rinko sighed. "Oh..."

I tilted my head. "Um, if all ya need's a Fluctlight, what's stoppin' ya from puttin' Kazu-boy or Nick in it? Y'know, when they're usin' the STL."

"It doesn't really work like that," Higa said. "Using the STL to access Underworld means they're going through a subcomputer, not getting directly put into Underworld like the Lightcube cluster. Plus, using the STL adds protections to their Fluctlights when they're in there. Those stop the STL from accidentally erasing memories or things like that. Those protections would stop the guys from using Ichiemon or Niemon properly."

"I'm surprised Kikuoka wanted something like that," Asuna said.

"Hey, Kiks is just doing his best," Higa protested. "And we're making sure Kirigaya and Weyr stay safe. We had to relax the core protections on their Fluctlights while they were recovering, but Weyr's are back up now and we're watching things carefully anyway."

I shrugged. "'Kay, just wonderin', is all." Sketchy as Kikuoka can be, it does sound like they're being careful to keep our boys safe.

Rinko cleared her throat. "Hey, Asuna, Kana." I tilted my head and Asuna made a cute noise of confusion. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

"No, we haven't," Asuna replied.

"I dunno 'bout A-chan, but my stomach's ready for food," I said.

Rinko smiled. "Then let's go down to the cafeteria together," she said. "I'd invite Higa, but he already made plans with Ichiemon."

Her grin was teasing, and Higa took it in stride, rummaging in his pocket to produce a nutrition bar. I shook my head and followed Asuna and Rinko out of the room. "Bon appetit, ladies!" he called out.

Asuna nodded to him with a smile, then stopped just before the doorway. I looked at her, but her eyes were fixed on the computer monitor that showed that white tower. Our only glimpse of the Underworld... "Back in a bit," she whispered.

Oh, A-chan, sweetheart...

Rinko led the way down to the cafeteria. As we walked through one of the many, many grey hallways - seriously they all looked the same, I had no idea how Rinko wasn't lost - a pair of researchers in white lab coats came the other way. We shuffled to the side to let them pass us, and as they did I felt -

\- something. It was like something tickled at the back of my spine. Nothing concrete, and I had no idea why, but... it was like something Nick said. He could just _sense_ something off.

Asuna and I stopped and turned to stare at the two researchers. They looked like they belonged here, with their lab coats and unshaven faces. The second guy had his hair pulled back in a ponytail, but that was all. He hadn't even turned to look back at us either.

I noticed that Asuna's fingers twitched near her belt, right where her rapier usually hung, though.

"Something wrong, you two?" Rinko had turned to look at us.

I let out a quiet breath. "...No, nothin'," I said to her.

"It's nothing," Asuna agreed.

"Come on, then."

Maybe it really was nothing. But... had that second guy, the one in the ponytail... Had he smirked at us?

* * *

**March 25th, 379 HE**

I opened my eyes.

Even before doing so, I'd become aware of myself and my body. I kneeled on a cold stone floor, one hand pressed over my heart. The floor was rough on my knees, and my body ached like I'd been there for a long time. But -

_that was ridiculous_

\- that was ridiculous. After all, until that very moment I could not have been said to exist. As far as I could tell, I'd come into existence merely moments ago.

As I opened my eyes, I beheld a beautiful woman standing in front of me, looking down at me. Her long purple hair fanned out behind her like a cloak, and aside from a hairpiece that looked almost like an angel's wings she was entirely nude. However, the woman's body was the last of my worries. It was her eyes that had captured me. They were brilliant silver and when she looked at me, I saw none of her thoughts in them but only my own reflection. There was something about them that terrified me, and I wanted to attack -

_I wanted to obey_

\- I wanted to obey her without question. There was no other emotion running through my heart at the sight.

"I am the Highest Order Administrator," she told me. "As the pontifex of the Axiom Church, I rule the Human Empire on behalf of the gods."

Without question. I accept her words instantly, for there wasn't even the possibility of going against what she had said. I could only feel terror -

_adoration_

\- adoration for the woman in front of me. "I have summoned you from the realm of the gods," she intoned, and I listened with rapt attention. "You shall be my servant and obey my orders as Rythin, Integrity Knight Thirty-One."

I bowed my head to my summoner. "Yes, Pontifex," I said. "I shall be yours to command."

When I looked back up, a satisfied smile was on her face. "Now," she said, "you must be tired. A summoning takes energy from both myself and the Integrity Knight, so simply rest your eyes for a while. When you awake, you will be in your quarters."

I nodded, and allowed the creeping lethargy to swallow me up. I would need time to rest my body from descending to the human world, after all.

...

I woke up again, not sure what time it was. I yawned widely and stood up from my bed, then looked out the window. The light of the sun dyed the clouds above my head a bright orange and red, giving the sky a brilliant color. I couldn't remember the realm I'd been in before descending to serve the Administrator, but I doubted it had held such sights.

Hmm... Administrator hadn't given me any commands, so... I had nothing to do, did I? I paced around my room for a few minutes, but in the end there wasn't a reason for me to leave my room -

_*growl*_

...My stomach growled, and I bit my lip. As it turned out, there was a very pressing reason for me to leave my room. I stepped out of my room and closed the door behind me. I didn't know where I was or where I was going, though...

"Ah, you're awake."

My spine stiffened as I turned towards the voice. A girl stood there, roughly my height, with brilliant golden hair tied into a braid down her back with a white ribbon at the end. She wore a simple blue dress that turned white below the waist. "Yes?" I asked. "And you are?"

"I am Alice Synthesis Thirty," she told me. Thirty? And if I was Thirty-One, then... "Since you've just been summoned, I knew you would be tired, and I was coming to see if you had awakened. I will be your mentor, and as my disciple, you will learn Sacred Arts and swordplay from me."

Learn from her? She couldn't be any older than I was! Besides, I had been summoned immediately after her. Why would I have to be taught by someone only slightly more experienced than me? "...Fine," I said. "Thank you for your assistance."

She smiled. I'd hidden my undercurrent of irritation well enough that she hadn't noticed a thing. "Very well. Now, you must be hungry." I nodded silently. "As I thought. I will show you to a location to eat, and then help you retrieve your equipment at the armory."

I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but I was too hungry to object to anything she said then. Alice led me down several hallways in silence before we emerged into a room that ended in a tower. After a minute or two, a platform descended. "The human world has plenty of surprises," I noted quietly.

"It took me time to adjust," Alice nodded. "You might be unfamiliar with the Axiom Church for now, but you must become accustomed quickly." My lips twitched in a frown for a second before I hid the expression. Why was she saying I had to do anything? She may be my mentor, but that didn't mean she could just boss me around like that. "50th Floor, please."

"Yes, Integrity Knight," the woman manning the platform said. "System call."

The platform lurched downwards, and I jolted for a second. Alice looked at me with a small smile on her face before she turned away. She was laughing at me, wasn't she?! Tch. I gathered myself and tugged at my grey tunic, smoothing out a wrinkle. I just had to be better so that nobody could laugh at me. I didn't quite know why or understand, but seeing that smile... It lit a fire in my stomach that burned, filling me with painful humiliation.

Alice led me down the stairs of the tower until we found a room with plenty of food in it. Alice plucked two small dumplings out of the pantry and held them in her right hand. "System call. Generate thermal element, aqueous element, aerial element." Three of her fingertips lit up with a red, blue, and green point respectively. She chanted some more and the green orb turned into a sphere that she dropped the meat buns into. She put the thermal and aqueous elements in there as well and then commanded them to «burst». The wind barrier became covered in pure white, swirling in the barrier of wind. After a second, it faded away and the two meat buns fell into her hand. "Here."

Showing off, huh? I bet this was all to mock me because I didn't know how to do it. "Thank you," I said, and accepted one. It did taste wonderful warm, though. My stomach accepted the gift gratefully, and it was only after I polished it off and licked my fingers for any remaining juices that I realized just how hungry I had been.

"We'll come back for a larger meal later," Alice told me. "It's a bad idea to perform strenuous exercise after eating a lot, after all."

"Understood." I kinda wanted to eat more right then, but Alice was my mentor and so I had to listen to her.

According to my guide the armory was on the second floor of the tower, and as we walked Alice told me more about the world I'd just joined. "This cathedral stands at the very center of the Human Empire," she said. "The lower floors serve as a place of learning for the novices and young children learning their Sacred Arts. Their bedrooms are also here." She smiled. "They work their hardest, and it's quite admirable."

"Did you ever -" I shook my head, cutting my words off. Of course she wouldn't have learned here. Like me, she'd been called down to the human realm. "Never mind." Alice nodded once but didn't look at me.

The rich red carpeting that led up and down the steps of the cathedral passed under our feet as we walked, until eventually Alice pushed open a door flanked by marble gargoyles. The room inside was dark, but even still I could tell it was vast. "System call. Generate luminous element," Alice chanted. She held her hand out and several small orbs of light appeared, floating above her head.

The room we were standing in was definitely the armory, with stacks and stacks of crates and armor stands. Weapons sat neatly on the racks by the walls, and sets of armor stood at attention, silent sentinels.

"This way." She studied me up and down. "We are of similar height."

"Is that so?"

"Yes... Armor close to my own would suit you." Alice nodded. "This way, then."

I'd be wearing equipment like hers, eh? Well, as long as I didn't end up wearing a dress. It seemed impossible to fight in. How could she run around and jump without it getting in the way?

It didn't take long for her to pick out my equipment, and only a little bit longer for her to guide me through how to put it all on. I looked down at the silver and white breastplate and rapped my knuckles against it; the metal gauntlets clanked with a ringing sound. It felt a little awkward to move around in and the armor itself was standard, but it fit well enough.

"Now, for your weapon -" Alice began.

Before she could continue, I'd already walked over to the weapons and started running my hand along the hilts. Sword, sword, axe, bow, whip... None of them were what I was looking for. It was some itch in my soul that told me these weren't the right weapons for me -

"This one," I said, wrapping my hand around a small handle. It was light in my hands, and the sheath had a belt attached to wrap around my waist. It took some time to settle properly, but once it did the weight of the weapon almost clicked into place in my mind like I'd been waiting for it, just a little off-balance. When I unsheathed the dagger, it gleamed in the light of Alice's luminous elements. It was a short thin blade, but somehow it felt right in my hands.

"A dagger?" Alice nodded. "If that's your decision, then let us proceed with a mock duel. I may not be able to teach you much, as my weapon of choice is a longsword."

...

The 80th Floor of the Central Cathedral was remarkable; when I stepped out onto it, I marveled at the small grass hill and dirt path. We... were still inside, right? "The Cloudtop Garden," Alice said with a smile on her face. "This is one of my favorite places to rest. This child loves it as well." 'This child'? Alice didn't seem to notice my confusion as she walked up the dirt path to the top of the hill where a single tree stood.

She placed her hand on the bark of the tree. A light shone from the tree, blinding me for an instant, and when I blinked away the sparkles in my vision Alice was holding a golden sword in her hand. She fastened the blade and sheath to her belt, and then drew the sword with the ring of steel. "To test your skills," she said, "I will fight you here and now. Draw your weapon, and come at me!"

"Ah... But the injuries -"

"I am proficient at the healing Sacred Arts," she said. "More than enough to heal any injuries either of us will receive in the course of our battle."

I exhaled slowly. Then drew my dagger. "Very well. Let's fight!"

I rushed towards her, but Alice didn't react. The hill wasn't steep but it made her loom over me, sword in hand. I gritted my teeth and brought my dagger down and back. It started glowing and I shouted, drawing forward with the blade. A trail of light traced the path as it pulled me forward way faster than I'd been running. Alice's eyes widened, but she didn't hesitate to bring her sword down in a glowing slash of her own.

Our blades clashed centimeters from my face, and I nearly dropped to one knee. Her blade was heavy! The glowing blades sparked as we stared at each other. I could feel that I was about to lose the clash and just as my blade stopped glowing I dropped to one knee. My dagger slid down Alice's sword as I tucked into a roll to dodge her follow-through. My lips spread in a frown as I bared my teeth, and then surged to my feet to slash at Alice again with the dagger. This time it didn't glow.

Alice's eyes widened but she brought her sword up again to block my slash. I kept up with the attack, pressing my tiny advantage as much as I was able. I gritted my teeth as Alice deflected all of them, and brought my foot up -

It glowed and shot up in a quick kick towards Alice's chin. Her head snapped back as it connected with the point, and I grinned as I completed the flip. She was still rocking backwards from the hit and I stabbed forward with my dagger, slashing towards her shoulder -

_*clang*_

Her sword blocked my dagger but just barely, and I left a long scratch just across her collarbone. "Hm," Alice hummed as she touched the wound with her free hand. "Well done. But now I'll be on the attack!"

I barely had time to gasp before her blade started slashing towards me. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration and that was the only thing that barely let me dodge the attacks. Her eyes flicked to the left or right, and by reading that I could shift out of the way just enough to parry her blows with my dagger. Left...! Right...! Duck! And then jump back! The most dangerous ones...

"Haah!" Alice shouted as she flourished her blade. The golden blade gleamed with an emerald light as I landed lightly on the ground, and she slashed. The sword seemed to slide forward as it cut towards my chest, and I just barely managed to flip backwards. It still scratched the metal of my breastplate, leaving a deep mark in the armor.

"Gah..." The damage, combined with my heavy armor, made me topple over. I raised my dagger -

And Alice batted it away with the flat of her blade like it was effortless, before leveling her blade at my throat. I froze. "This is my victory," she said.

Khhhh... Don't look down on me!

"Your weapon was no match for my own. This Fragrant Olive Sword is a Divine Object, and no mere metal blade could hope to defeat it." So she knew I wouldn't win, but still fought me anyway?! Fuck! She was just toying with me the whole time, wasn't she! I bet this was all so I would embarrass myself in front of her. Some teacher she was!

"Looks like you two are having some fun."

The rough gravelly voice came from the edge of the green grass, and I brushed myself off deliberately before I turned to face it. "Commander!" Alice called out. "I didn't know you'd be coming by!"

Her body language had somehow transformed entirely from the stoic girl that had greeted me outside my room. Now, she was practically bouncing up and down in place, eager to please. And the cause? An old man, grizzled with scars on his face. The only reason I didn't dismiss him immediately was the sword fastened on his waist. That, and the strange shiver that ran down my spine when I met his eyes.

The man approached us. "So you're the newest Integrity Knight, huh?" He looked me up and down, and I shifted self-consciously. "I'm the commander of the Integrity Knights. Bercouli Synthesis One."

Commander, huh? It explained why Alice was so excited to see him. I bet she was happy he saw her beat the crap out of me. But it also explained the intense look in his eyes. "Rythin Synthesis Thirty-One," I replied.

"From what I saw, you can handle yourself in a fight," Bercouli said. "Not many of us can land a scratch on the little lady over here, even if she wasn't wearing armor."

"Thank you...?"

He grinned. "Almost makes me want to take a shot at you myself."

Alice inhaled sharply, but I nodded. "If that's a request from my commander, I must oblige," I said.

Bercouli laughed. "That's the spirit, boy! And who knows? If you beat me, then there'll be a new commander of the Integrity Knights." So that's how it worked? The strongest ruled?

It made perfect sense to me.

"Commander, will you really duel him?"

"Why not?" Bercouli asked. Alice frowned, but nodded once and stepped back. "I promise I won't cut you too badly," he said to me. "We still need Alice there to patch you up."

"The courtesy is appreciated," I said. I wasn't going to hold back at all!

As soon as he drew his sword, I launched myself forward. My dagger glowed with a blue light and I spun, slashing towards Bercouli's open side. His smile didn't so much as twitch when his sword flashed out and blocked my attack. "Good technique," he praised me, even while his blade didn't budge so much as an inch, even without the glow. "Quick on the draw, too. I can see why you were called."

I clicked my tongue. Patronizing bastard! My dagger slid upwards as I punched, my fist glowing red, and slammed my knuckles into his blade. His eyes widened as I flowed smoothly into my next technique and slashed up with my dagger, driving the tip towards his throat -

"Ghhk!" The sound was forced out of me when the scabbard to his sword slammed into my stomach. I skidded backwards and then crumpled when my knees gave out under me. It took a few seconds for my body to remember how to breathe, but eventually I managed to gasp for air.

"Not bad, not bad, kid," Bercouli nodded. His sword slid back into the scabbard with the quiet rasp of steel. "But you've still got plenty to learn."

When he turned his back on me, I snarled. Lecture me, would he? He'll be the first to find out that I would _never_ put up with that if I could help it! I kicked off the ground and rushed straight towards him, dagger stabbing towards his back. I knew that if I plunged it just above the waist, I'd pierce his lung and -

"Uncle!"

"You little punk." I had just enough time to realize that Bercouli's sword was slashing towards me before hot pain bloomed across my cheek. The tip of his sword had sliced open my cheek, but the force of the swing's pressure blew me backwards. Bercouli stared at me hard, then shrugged. "Guess that was better than you swinging that empty blade of yours at me like earlier. But come at me with honor next time."

"Ghhh... yes sir," I ground out. Blood trickled from my cheek, but I hardly noticed. Even while Alice walked over to my side and started quietly chanting a Sacred Art, I watched Bercouli walk away.

When Alice pulled her hand away, I looked at her. "That was... foolish," she said. There wasn't any sort of good humor or tenderness in her voice. "You are lucky we are forbidden from severely injuring each other."

Whatever. It wasn't like _she_ cared at all, right? I bet she was smiling when Bercouli cut me. "Thank you for healing me."

"Mm. Do you recall the directions to your quarters, and to the pantry?" Alice walked past me. "Forgive me for not guiding you further. I would spend some time in the sun's last moments."

I stared at her from the corner of my eyes as she climbed the hill. She didn't look back, even as she drew her sword out and transformed it back into a tree. I was on my own, huh? Well, that was fine. I liked it better that way anyway.

* * *

**June 19th, 379 HE**

Alice wasn't the warmest teacher but she was conscientious. Each morning she would be waiting for me to finish eating, stone-faced; she would give me a list of Sacred Arts to memorize, as well as their use. Cryogenic element, luminous element, their multiple uses and combinations... They were all drilled into me without hesitation or mercy. My pronunciation was deemed 'passable' and my memorization capabilities 'sufficient' by Alice, each time I proved to her I could spit back the Sacred Arts she'd decided I must learn that day. After that, she'd leave and I'd find myself with nothing to do but practice.

I didn't know the source of my techniques, but I was sure they were the reason the Pontifex had called me from heaven. The punches and kicks I could pull off when not wearing my armor - with the heavy metal weighing my body down, I was restricted to punches and the occasional Secret Technique that made my limbs glow. These Secret Techniques were mine and mine alone, and I made sure to never demonstrate them when other Integrity Knights were nearby.

Those Integrity Knights... I'd met several, in my time living in the Central Cathedral. In addition to Alice and Bercouli, there was Fanatio and his coterie of knights. The one battle I'd had with Fanatio, as a practice spar, had gone well enough; I'd managed to slip through his consecutive Secret Arts without hesitation, despite never seeing them before, and a dagger held to his neck had been the end of the battle.

Naturally, after all! Because I had to be the strongest, so that I'd be the most useful to Administrator.

And then one day, my hard work was answered.

"There is a beast, interfering with the lives of my subjects," the Pontifex told me. "Go to the west and slaughter it. Do so for me, my loyal Knight. Prove your worth."

"Of course, my lady," I said, pressing a fist to my chest.

She graced me with a smile. I knew that I would not fail her.

On my name as Integrity Knight Rythin, Synthesis Thirty-One!

* * *

**Hoooo boy. Here we go.**

**So, this is going to be the direction I'm taking this story. Integrity Knight Rythin! I'm a little worried on how people will view things (since it kinda cuts Rythin out of the story in other ways) but hopefully the reception is mostly positive. I'm aware that a lot of people might not like this, or think that I should have had Rythin go to Norlangarth in order to meet (and probably grievously injure) some of the characters there, but... tough, I guess? I'm writing the story I want to write.**

**Moving on from that... Administrator is a bitch, we all know, moving on. Rythin does not give a shit that she's naked, so I'm not going into detail. Find fanart somewhere else, you pervs. That being said, Nick is definitely the type of person to question himself and so I had no problem letting her get him under her spell; until she made one too many comments.**

**Really, the biggest perk of Rythin Synthesis 31? I get to write original Nightblade-era Rythin, where he's just kind of an asshole. Some people were asking for this, so here you go! Hope you all enjoy.**

**Many thanks to everyone that favorited, followed, or reviewed.**


	4. Missions

**Chapter 4: Missions**

* * *

"There is a beast, interfering with the lives of my subjects," the Pontifex told me. "Go to the west and slaughter it. Do so for me, my loyal Knight. Prove your worth."

"Of course, my lady," I said, pressing a fist to my chest.

She graced me with a smile. I knew that I would not fail her.

On my name as Integrity Knight Rythin, Synthesis Thirty-One!

...

Administrator's words echoed in my mind as I descended to the 30th floor. A mission. A mission for me, to prove my worth to her! I couldn't have asked for anything more. Finally, I'd be able to go out and show up that golden girl. Stuck-up holier-than-thou spoiled princess.

Naturally, if I was going to do this, I needed to leave immediately and finish as fast as possible to show the Pontifex how useful I was. My dagger was already sheathed on my back, and since I wore my armor everywhere that wasn't my private room I was fully equipped to handle whatever beast was so disruptive it merited an Integrity Knight being sent out. All I needed now? A way to get to the location.

When I reached the Dragon Landing Field, I strode up to the man standing nearby. "The Pontifex has commanded me to fly west," I said with no preamble.

"Of course, sir Integrity Knight," the man said. When he pressed his hand to his chest and lowered his head, I smirked. Yes, that was the respect they should be showing me! "I've been informed of the location."

"Tell me as I prepare the dragon," I told him. "There is one for me, correct?"

"Yes. This way."

It was only mildly irritating that I was the only Integrity Knight I knew of to not have raised his own dragon from scratch. Something about how raising a dragon from a child 'deepened the bond between mount and Knight', or some nonsense like that. I didn't care. Why would I need a bond with something that only had the job of flying me around? Besides, it wasn't like it _mattered_ at all that I was the only one who didn't have his own dragon.

Of course, it wasn't like I was entirely on my own. I'd learned how to fly on dragonback - that Alice insisted on me learning, as part of her duties - by using one of the fully-grown dragons in the... stable wasn't the _right_ word, but close enough. Alice had her Amayori.

I had the one I would soon take to calling Red.

"Thank you, that will be sufficient," I said to the dragon attendant as I tightened the straps around Red's chest to secure the metal armor that protected her neck and upper body while on duty. He'd told me enough that I knew I'd be able to find the beast. "You may leave."

"...Yes, sir Knight," the attendant said. "Surely you know best." I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, but he'd already turned and walked away. Impudent human. I could crush him with one hand and there would be nothing he could do about it.

Whatever. The attitude of the servants of the church didn't matter at all. Red let out a quiet snort after I climbed up onto her saddle. "Let's go, Red," I told her. "We're going west."

...

I relaxed in the saddle as Red flew. Normally, I wouldn't dream of lowering my guard like that; Red's massive horns twisted back in jagged spirals, and her long tail could shatter stone if she struck it. Her red scales that earned her the moniker I called her by were almost as hard as my armor, so my simple dagger would find difficulty in piercing them. I still relaxed, though, because the binding Arts on her were powerful enough that she wouldn't try to kill me or disobey orders. I had no reason to worry because her obedience was guaranteed.

As for the target... It was a massive white tiger with black stripes that had decided to descend from the mountains near the edge of Wesdarath. It didn't live _quite_ up against the «West Gorge», but that was good. Few humans lived near the only entrance to the Dark Territory in the western empire, which made my job much easier - I could fight without having my hands tied by the possibility of breaking the Taboo Index. Not that I was bound by the rules of the common folk; as an Integrity Knight, my job was too important to be restricted by an inability to kill. But, were I to fight this massive tiger in a village... Well, Red's fire breath would probably roast a few too many people. The Pontifex might be mad if I torched a village under her orders.

Before too much longer the mountain range on the edge of the empire came into view and I sat up straight. It wouldn't be long until... "There," I said. My finger pointed towards the single farming village in sight. "Fly to that village and land." Red didn't reply with a cry or anything like that, but her entire body shifted as she angled towards our destination.

The villagers had already gathered when I dismounted from Red's back. "Integrity Knight," an old man said. He was thin, and his cheekbones showed prominently on his face. "Welcome to our village. I am the mayor of -"

"I apologize," I said, my voice muffled by the identity-hiding helmet I wore. "But my mission is pressing enough that I can spare no time for the usual pleasantries."

"O-Of course, Integrity Knight," the mayor babbled. My smirk was hidden by the helmet. "I wouldn't dream - how can we assist you?"

There was no _real_ need for me to request anything from them. Still, some small part of me had to crush the uncharitable flicker of glee that they were dancing around after a single sentence from me. Ah, what a wonderful thing, to be respected. "Simply information," I said, and the crowd murmured. "The beast shall fall before me, but my time, as I've said, is valuable. The more I know about the creature, the faster I shall destroy it."

The thin mayor said, "Yes, Integrity Knight. Please, wait a moment."

It didn't take long for the few villagers that had seen the white tiger to come forward and tell me their stories. Of them all, I was unimpressed except by one; I already knew the creature was massive and lived among the mountains, and so the only farmer with any new information was some heavy-set man with brown hair. He'd given me his name, but I didn't actually care. He was the only one to encounter it during the day and so the information, in this case, was that the sky had turned dark as the beast approached as though night had fallen.

Probably some sort of umbral element manipulation, unique to the animal. Some of the beasts in the human empire were able to use something close to Sacred Arts; Red's fire breath was a good example. Whatever this tiger did to blot out Solus's blessing, it was probably just umbral elements.

"We're flying, Red," I said. My dragon flapped her wings and we took to the skies. Red let out a roar, and I pointed to the sinking sun on the horizon. "That way. Towards the edge of the fields." She roared again and soared through the air.

The tiger had struck at a regular cycle according to the villagers, but it hadn't attacked yet this week. The next raid against their fields was due any day, and I had a good feeling about the day. The expression I was making... It wasn't quite a smile. No. I bared my teeth as I prepared to do battle.

As the sun sank down the horizon, I noticed a patch of shadows spreading towards me that outran the others. The sea of darkness spread outwards and I exhaled slowly. "Prepare your fire breath, Red," I said. "Use it on my signal."

Then, I jumped off the dragon's back.

Stupid? Who cared! I was immortal, my Life was frozen! I had been called from heaven to obey the Pontifex's orders and slay her enemies, and I would never fall before my task was ended! "Generate aerial element!" The tips of my fingers glowed with green light, and I pointed at the ground. Just before I slammed into the ground, I shouted, "Burst!"

The blast of wind broke my fall perfectly and I landed lightly on my feet on bare, tilled earth. The crops that were planted were destroyed beyond repair, of course. But they were going to lose them to the tiger anyway, so what matter who destroyed them? In fact, because they were going to be ruined by the tiger, I could consider them as 'destroyed objects that were still living'. Thus, it was perfectly acceptable for me to destroy them, and not something the Pontifex would be mad about at all.

I enjoyed the last few moments of sunlight before the darkness swept overhead, blotting out the sun. The old man had described it well; the smoky clouds hanging over my head and all around me brought to mind the dark of night, while the small bits of light that filtered through from the sky gleamed like momentary stars. I drew my dagger and crept forward, walking lightly. My armor made little noise as I walked through the gloom, and I couldn't help but congratulate myself for being better at sneaking than every other Integrity Knight -

There wasn't much warning when the tiger struck. One instant I was walking forward, the next a massive paw was clawing at my head. I ducked with a gasp and the claws passed just over my head. I slashed at the tiger, but my dagger passed through the gloom without contact. I snarled and scrabbled back to my feet. "I am Rythin, Integrity Knight Synthesis Thirty-One!" I proclaimed. "The Highest Order Administrator has commanded me to kill you, beast!"

I didn't get an answer. I didn't expect one. But that wasn't the point. It made _me_ feel better.

My dagger guarded my body as I looked around. The white tiger was focusing on me, now. I could _feel_ the attention of the creature, almost like a pressure on my body. Abruptly I whirled and pointed. "Generate thermal element! Form element arrow shape, fly straight, discharge!" The fiery arrow shot forward and splashed against a white and black pelt, briefly lit. A yowl of anger and pain answered my attack, and I launched myself forward. I knew where it was, I just had to kill it!

My blade raked down the tiger's side and it splashed blood over my arm and chest piece. The wound was shallow, however, and it sprang to the side before I could sink the point into its hindquarters. I'd still been close enough to see that the charred spot of fur where my Sacred Art had struck wasn't effective in the least. The beast's fur protected against the elements!

I growled under my breath and slashed again at the beast. This time I missed the attack and I hissed out loud, just before bringing my dagger back to block against the tiger's massive claws trying to split me from crown to groin. Its claws clashed with my blade and I was knocked down, flat on my back while the beast's weight threatened to crush me in my own armor. It snarled and opened its mouth to bite me.

Exactly what I wanted.

"Generate... thermal element! Form element arrow shape, fly straight! Discharge!" Even if its fur was resistant, the inside of its mouth would be helpless in the face of my powerful Sacred Arts! Kya hah hah -

...Hah?! The red orb on my fingertip flickered as it tried to form the arrow shape I'd dictated, but couldn't manage to change from the orb shape. What?! I'd chanted it perfectly! It was impossible for me to make that mistake!

With a frantic yell I punched at the tiger's jaw. My gauntlet smashed at its teeth and it yowled angrily, twisting away from me. I rolled away and surged to my feet, then kicked backwards to put some distance between me and the tiger. Why had my Sacred Art failed?! I clenched my fist. It had summoned the element, so I hadn't chanted poorly, and naturally I wouldn't have stumbled on the second half of it, so...

Kuhhhh! Stupid! How had I failed to think of that at first! I snarled at myself. Of course the elements would be weak here - the beast was blocking me from the Sacred Power generated by the sun, making it impossible to do more than Burst an element! That was... How could I have screwed up!

"You're going to die!" I howled at the beast. "Pay for this with your life!"

How could I do this, then? I slashed at the tiger when its stripes passed by the corner of my eyes, but didn't catch anything. The creature was playing with me. If I couldn't use my Sacred Arts properly, then... No. Why would I give up? I was the Pontifex's most powerful servant! I would kill this tiger with my bare hands if it came to that!

An angry snarl echoed through the gloom and I answered it with a call of my own, snarling loudly. This time, when the beast jumped at me I dropped to one knee and thrust up with my dagger. I stabbed straight into the soft pads of the tiger's right paw, and when I yanked my blade free the spray of hot blood splashed over my white armor. "There!" I shouted. "Take that, you monster!"

The tiger snarled and backed away. "Oh? Did you really think I'd let you get away?" I asked with a sneer. "Be serious!"

Then the tiger, one paw curled because of the hole in it, still dripping blood, pounced directly at me.

"Gah!" I crashed to the ground and struggled, but the beast's weight was directly on top of me. No matter what I tried, it refused to budge. Even raking at its stomach with my feet didn't get it off of me.

No. This monster wouldn't let me go until I was dead - and with the way my knife was carving through its body, it seemed like it was going to be a double kill.

"Khh... Not gonna... be that easy," I ground out. "Generate element! Luminous element! BURST!"

I held my hand up high in the air and closed my eyes. Still, the blinding flash seared through my eyelids, turning my vision red. The white tiger, on the other hand, had no such warning, and the yowl that came from it almost made me feel bad about what I'd just done to it.

As soon as the pressure on my body shifted I rolled over and stabbed my dagger through the tiger's other paw and into the ground. Disoriented and in pain, it wasn't able to properly tug my blade out of the dirt. But that wouldn't last long. "You're... not going anywhere," I growled. "Just stay right HERE!"

I looked up, at the small gap in the 'night' sky. My luminous element had countered the clouds perfectly and blasted a hole, right where the sun was falling behind the mountains. And between myself and the sun...

Red _roared_, shaking the ground, and I sneered at the tiger. "Generate cryogenic element," I said.

My dragon opened her mouth and the red elements that had been gathering the entire fight collected into one massive ball. "Form element, shield shape."

The white tiger tried to run, but my dagger still pinned its paw to the ground. I kicked it in the stomach and it roared again.

"Discharge!"

The shield of ice covered my body just as the entire ground turned white-hot with dragon flame. I huddled under my shield and the tiger's body, but even with that layer of protection the heat bled through until it felt like I was cooking in my armor. I gritted my teeth and held on; if it was this bad for me, the thrashing tiger on top of me had to have it even worse. It yowled and screamed as the flames of Red's breath burned down on it.

The fury of the dragon breath died off, but it took a while for me to realize it had ended. The heat rose from the earth and made the air visibly ripple, and I felt like I was cooking in my armor. But, as I pushed the tiger's body off and it fell over limply, I didn't care. I'd _won_.

...

I presented the evidence of my completed task to the Pontifex on the 50th Floor, in the grand hall with light pouring down from above. "Very well done, my Integrity Knight," Administrator told me. I straightened my back and smiled. "You served me faithfully, as commanded."

"Naturally." My voice was still somewhat hoarse from the heat - I'd been breathing in heated air, and the rasp in my throat was the natural result from that. Even the healing Sacred Art I'd performed after killing the white tiger hadn't properly restored it.

Administrator smiled at me, and the sight was so beautiful I couldn't help but bask in it. It was all I wanted, really. With this, she'd think I was the strongest no matter what! "As a reward... Let me see..." She ran her fingers over the body of the white tiger I'd laid at her feet. "Yes, this will do nicely. I will craft you a wonderful weapon, fitting the Integrity Knight that shall wield it."

My eyes gleamed as I watched her chant the Sacred Art. With this, I could fight back against Alice. She wouldn't be able to humiliate me like that ever again! Still, I had to shield my eyes as the animal's corpse lifted into the air and glowed a bright white. Its body broke down into streams of light that spiraled into the air and collected into a ball, high in the air; this had to be some sort of divine skill, not merely a Sacred Art. The strands of light twisted and turned, and somewhere within the ball a shadow emerged. It was a small blade, and Administrator extended her arms forward. The blade sank down as though it was being lowered into her hands by a god.

"This Divine Object," she said to me as she turned around, "will be yours. It is called the Starry Night Dagger. Use it well in your service to me, Synthesis Thirty-One."

The blade was deceptively simple. It was slim and thin, almost like the... It was! It was like the claw of the tiger I'd slaughtered had turned into a shining weapon. I touched the blade and marveled at the cool metal underneath my fingertips. The hilt itself was striped black and white, with a star-shaped gem set in the pommel.

"...Thank you," I said.

"Use it as you obey my orders and protect the Axiom Church," the Pontifex told me. Her musical voice turned it into an absolute command that I was all too happy to obey. "I continue to expect you to do this for me, Rythin."

She reached out and caressed my cheek, and I closed my eyes. Unfortunately, the cool touch was perfunctory and impersonal -

_short and sweet_

The cool touch was short and sweet, and when I opened my eyes it had already ended. Administrator had turned her back and walked away, and I bowed towards her back. "I will not fail you, Lady Administrator," I swore. Not like those other Knights. They could fail all they wanted. I'd _never_ fail her, not after she'd given me so much.

Well, then. Time to practice with my new weapon.

* * *

**November 5th, 379 HE**

I walked through the halls. This was a rare chance, honestly. My services were in high demand by the Pontifex, naturally, and as I was quick to adapt to the situation at hand I was often flying about on a wide variety of tasks. I didn't get to really spend much time in the Central Cathedral often and while I didn't regret not being around Alice, it did also mean that I couldn't ever see the Pontifex. From what I'd heard from Bercouli, though, she was very busy and even he hadn't been able to see her recently.

While I didn't want it to be true, the combination of 'even the commander of the Integrity Knights hadn't talked to her' and 'I'd received all of my orders from the Prime Senator recently' lent credence to the idea that Highest Order Administrator was busy maintaining the peace and order of our society.

I sighed as I started to ascend the steps to my room. That didn't change the fact that I wanted to see her. I really, really wanted to see her. I wanted her to hold me in her arms and say that she was there for -

"Look, Linel, someone new! I haven't seen him around here before."

"Maybe he's a new Integrity Knight?"

I froze and looked around. The two young voices seemed to come from nowhere. But, I'd definitely heard them from above me. So, why not answer them? "I am the newest Integrity Knight," I said as I continued up the steps. "And who are you? Spying on me?" Maybe Alice drafted two of the novices studying Sacred Arts to mess with me.

"Hurry, run!"

"Ah, Fizel, wait...!"

As I rounded the stairs, I saw a pair of dresses scurrying further up the steps. They definitely looked like the uniforms the students wore when studying and learning on the lower floors of the Central Cathedral. Two girls, or at the very least two students wearing the female uniform, were spying on me. I could hear their footsteps stop as they climbed more steps, as well as some of the quiet giggling when they stopped. They were having a good time, eh? Well. I wasn't going to let them laugh at me like that.

"System call," I whispered quietly. The orbs of light blinked into existence on my fingers as I summoned aerial elements, and shaped a set of metallic elements into a thin circle underneath my feet. Then, it started to lift in the air.

I'd stolen this idea from the elevator that we rode up and down the central pillar. Mimicking it was more difficult than I had originally expected, but that made sense. There was a lot of structure to assist the elevator in raising and lowering that I simply didn't have. But, my sense of balance was excellent, and I was able to float upwards through the center of the stairs.

As I did, I could easily see the culprits. Two kids were kneeling on the stairs, peeking around the corner at where I was. Of course they hadn't looked up, so they couldn't see me as I ascended. Both of them were wearing the novice dresses, and since they weren't looking at me the only difference I could tell was how they had their straw-colored hair styled. The one in front had it pretty short in a messy style that... seemed... familiar?

No. I had to be imagining it. I'd never interacted with the students before in my life. The other one had longer hair, pulled back into braided twintails. That style didn't evoke that weird feeling in me, and I put it out of my mind.

My feet touched lightly on the steps behind them, nearly silently. The two students still hadn't noticed me and I folded my arms. Their situational awareness needed some work... "And why are you spying on me?"

"Eek!" Both students squealed and whirled around. The twintailed one grabbed at the short-haired one and ducked behind them, peeking out at me.

...Two girls? Why were they staring at me like that? The short-haired girl had blue eyes and a brave look on her face, and the twintailed girl had grey eyes with a meek expression on her face. They were wearing identical outfits, with a light breastplate on their chest. "Who are you? Are you allowed up here?" Their ink-black uniforms were rare this high up. Most of the time, the novices were studying.

"I'm Fizel Synthesis Twenty-Nine," the front girl said proudly.

"Ah... I'm Linel Synthesis Twenty-Eight," the other one said.

Um. Well. That's awkward. Come to think of it, I could see that each of them had a dagger sitting on their hips; the reddish wood hilt poked out around their side and was fastened with a green belt. The novices weren't allowed to carry weapons on them... I should have noticed that earlier. Stupid, idiot Rythin. "Ah. Integrity Knight Rythin Synthesis Thirty-One," I said with a polite bow. "It's nice to meet you two."

"Yeah, same," Fizel said. Linel nodded without saying anything.

"I must say, I'm surprised that you two are Integrity Knights," I said. "How old are you?"

Fizel grinned at me. "We're ten!" she said proudly.

"Ten and two months," Linel corrected her.

...Okay, the kids were pretty cute. "Do you have a weapon?" Fizel asked. "What's it made from? Can we see?"

I blinked at the rapid-fire questions. "I... Um, yeah. A dagger that -"

"Cool!" Fizel said. "We use daggers too, right Linel?"

"Right," Linel said.

"Wanna play?"

I blinked again at Fizel's question. "What."

"Wanna play?" she asked again. "One of the big rooms should be open, so the three of us can play around. If you're a new Integrity Knight, Linel and I want to test ourselves!"

Oh. When she says play, she means... "I'll fight you," I said. The two girls smiled, and there was a glimmer of feral glee in their eyes. It seemed like something interesting...

The open hall was clearly meant for training, with human-like training posts set up along the wall. Several of them were heavily scarred, and it was probably about time for the wood to be replaced; their Life was probably almost down to zero. Fizel and Linel ran into the room and turned to face me. "So, let's just go until one team yields," Fizel said. "Sound like fun?"

"Sure," I said. "Since you said team..." I cracked my neck and knuckles. "You two versus me?"

Linel nodded. "If that's fine, then let's start."

I smirked and pulled out the Starry Night Dagger. Sure, this was live steel. But who cares? If they die, then... well, that was a shame for them, wasn't it? Administrator didn't need weaklings serving her. Besides, the two girls pulled out their own daggers. The weapons were pretty long, more a very short sword than true daggers. Their weapons might be longer than my own, but that didn't mean much when I was a head taller than them. My arms were longer, and that meant I had the ultimate advantage.

The two children charged me at once and I exhaled slowly. They were moving quickly enough, but in my eyes everything they were going to do was crystal clear. Fizel would try to distract me from the front with a series of attacks forcing me back while Linel circled around to get me from behind. From there, they'd just try to knock me down and pin me, since actually killing was supposed to be off-limits.

Heh.

Instead of waiting for them to come to me, I took a step back and took another deep breath. Then, it exploded out of me as I lunged forward, my blade glowing. The edge cut a path through the air and left the blue trail behind me as I rocketed forward towards the two girls. Their eyes widened and they both split up to dodge the attack, but that was all I needed.

As soon as my body was able to move again, I surged forward and brought my empty hand up to catch Fizel's wrist as she moved for a slash. I smirked as her eyes widened and she gasped, "Uh oh!" I twisted and spun, and Fizel went flying directly into Linel as the twintailed girl tried to stab me in the back. They both collapsed on top of each other, groaning.

"Not a bad idea," I said while Fizel rolled off of her friend. "Especially Linel, going for my back when I was countering Fizel. But you're too slow right now to pull that off, when your opponents are stronger."

"Ow ow ow..." Fizel moaned when she stood up.

"I've been meaning to ask," I said as I flipped my dagger in the air, "but how come you two are Integrity Knights? You both seem a little young for that sort of position."

"Eheheh... Well, we're not really Integrity Knights yet," Fizel admitted. "We were allowed to choose our next Calling when we completed our first, and we both chose to be Integrity Knights!"

Linel sighed. "But someone complained because we were too young. The Pontifex made us prove ourselves." She looked at her dagger. "We killed the previous Integrity Knights Twenty-Eight and Twenty-Nine, so we were made Integrity Knight trainees."

Huh. Well. That's interesting. A pair of little killers, huh?

I opened my mouth to say something to them, but cackling laughter interrupted me. I turned around and straightened my back as the red and blue ball bounced into the training room. Behind me, Fizel and Linel got themselves in a presentable state just in time for the Prime Senator to unfurl and spin around on one foot.

"You! Number Thirty-One!" Chudelkin exclaimed. "A new mission. Head west to Veshire and investigate. Monsters from the Dark Territory have sooooomehow been seen nearby. Hmph!" A puff of air escaped his piggy nose. "Whoever let that happen will surely be punished! Clean up their mess, will you?"

"Of course, Prime Senator. I would never refuse one of the Pontifex's orders," I said placidly. My eyes were cold and drilled into the butterball. Of course, if he noticed the barbed comment, the Prime Senator didn't say anything and instead bounced off deeper into the Central Cathedral.

I let out a quiet sigh and turned back to Fizel and Linel. "...Well, you'll never beat me the way you were trying earlier," I told them. Both girls looked at me. "But when you can't beat someone with pure strength, you need a separate strategy. Poison is a very, very good idea." I grinned at them. "If your opponent can't move, there's nothing that'll stop you from slitting their throat or cutting out their heart."

"We're good at that," Linel said.

"The stabbing in the heart thing," Fizel said. "We'll give the poison part a try too!"

Aww. They look like they're going to try their best. "When I get back, I'll fight you again," I said. "Show me how much you've improved."

And if anyone cares that I'm beating up literal children? Who cares. I'm _winning_, and that's the important thing.

* * *

Veshire. This place was already boring and banal and I was just flying over it on Red's back. I can't imagine how obnoxious it will be once I'm actually down and in the place; it probably smelled like the rest of the swampland Red and I had been flying over for the last several hours. However, I had to go down there and do my job. Highest Order Administrator may not have been the one to give me these orders, but the Prime Senator nominally spoke for him and so I needed to obey.

"Alright Red, let's go down. Duty calls." Red couldn't answer me, of course, but her answering growl deep in her chest was answer enough. Soon enough we were circling over the central clearing of the town, dropping lower and lower until Red finally folded her wings on the ground.

"Sir Integrity Knight!" the man dressed in rich silks said. "Wh-what brings you to our village?" I stared at the man. His indulgences showed clearly on his body, with the heavy jowls hanging from his cheeks. His voice irked me.

Fortunately, I was able to hide my irritation with my new helmet; I'd been allowed to request new armor a few weeks prior for doing an excellent job rounding up wild animals that had been threatening farms in the eastern empire. Naturally, I'd chosen a tiger as my armor's motif. "Pest control, I suppose," I said. The new armor warped my voice more than before, making it nearly unrecognizable to anyone except another Integrity Knight. "Demons from the Dark Territory have been detected nearby."

"Ah... Thank you for hurrying, Integrity Knight," the man said as he mopped his brow with a square of silk. "Recently, our farmers have been unable to properly tend their fields. Each morning, the crops are trampled and ruined."

"And you know this to be the work of the demons?"

"W-We do," he said. "One of our woodcutters noticed the ugly creatures sneaking through the woods. Thanks to his bravery, their nest has been discovered."

I nodded gravely. "And his service will be remembered." Of course it won't. It's not like anyone else matters but me and Highest Order Administrator. "As the mayor, you should be proud of your citizens."

"Of course, Integrity Knight," the fat man said. "Will you be leaving immediately?"

"No," I said, and glanced at the sky. It was still overhead, and wouldn't begin to descend until later. "The demons from the Dark Territory despise the pure light of Solus, and will not leave their den while it shines."

The mayor stared at me and nodded. "That makes perfect sense! Why, it would explain why our farmers never see them during the day!" Honestly? Most of what I'd said was made up. In the small amount of time I'd spent in the Dark Territory, the creatures there were perfectly active in the daylight. That being said, since the mayor confirmed they only went out at night, I didn't have to come up with a creative excuse for why I'd been wrong. "What shall you do until then? If it's not too much trouble, I would be honored if you were to avail yourself of my hospitality," he said, wringing his hands together.

"Very well," I said, and looked at Red. "Find some place to stay, Red," I told her. "I'll need you in several hours, so return by sunset." The beast rumbled in return and lifted herself into the air before flying away. Now, to the mayor's house.

The house that was, as it turned out, pretty big, all things considered. The town seemed to be very poor, all things considered, but that didn't stop him from having multiple floors. As I walked through the halls, I passed by a young girl carrying a quilt that had dust and cobwebs all over it. "Why isn't that clean?" the mayor snapped. "Useless girl!"

I blinked as he raised his hand and smack her across the face. The small girl's cheek turned red but she didn't do more than whimper. Her face barely registered an emotion as she bowed to the mayor and ran off. "Does that happen often?"

"Often enough, I'm ashamed to say," the man replied. "The young children come serve as my maids before they reach the age when they get their Calling. That often means I must be... firm of hand with them."

_*Th-thump*_

I pressed a hand to my chest in surprise. What...? What was that feeling? Well. It probably didn't matter.

Several hours later, after I'd eaten my fill of the cheap food they'd presented me, I returned to the clearing. Red was already waiting for me, fortunately, and it didn't take long for me to climb up on her back. "Integrity Knight," the fat mayor said. "If there's anything else I can do -"

"Get on," I said.

"Erm... pardon me?"

I frowned. Why must I repeat myself? "I said, get on," I said, and gestured to the second seat in the dragon saddle. "I'll need you to lead me to their nest."

"B-B-But sir Integrity Knight, it's getting dark, and I'd intended -" A gentle pressure on Red's side made the dragon growl, and the fat man seemed to rethink his complaints. "Yes, of course, Integrity Knight!"

It didn't take long for Red to fly us to the location of the nest. Which made sense when I gave it a few moments' thought, since a single woodcutter had managed to walk there and back. I instructed Red to land a little bit away and hopped down. "Stay here," I told the mayor as he scrambled down from Red's back. "I will be doing my work, and don't want you in the way."

"Of course!" The fat man huddled against a tree. I nodded once and walked forward, pulling the Starry Night Dagger from its sheath.

Time for me to enjoy the hunt. I smiled under my helmet and licked my lips, then shot forward through the swamp. It was rough to move through the soft dirt but that didn't slow me down as I bounded forward. I barely even noticed the drag as I searched for the demons proper. I just had to look around, until...

My lips curled into a smile as I saw the glimmer of fire in the dark. Demons from the Dark Territory were quite stupid indeed. Without saying a word, I strode forward and entered the small circle of light. My eyes darted back and forth as I scanned the clearing, and then I smirked. This was going to be easy. After all, all I needed to do was kill ten or so goblins.

Their green skin was painted with white symbols that didn't mean anything to me, and they were conversing to each other in their guttural tongue. A few of them laughed in cruel tones and hefted sharp but rusty weapons; others were busy eating what smelled like burned meat. It seemed they'd managed to slaughter some livestock as well as trash the farms. Of course, they hadn't managed to upgrade their wardrobe, and all of the goblins were wearing disgusting and torn loincloths.

"Heh... Some mongrels snuck in," I said. "Looks like I'll have to take out the trash."

"Grrrr...! One of the Ium knights," a goblin growled.

"Let's kill him and eat him down to his bones!"

A large shadow stretched over me and I looked up. The rest of the goblins were roughly my height, maybe a little taller or shorter. But the large monster that stood over me was easily twice my height. Unlike the other goblins, this one was wearing rudimentary armor around its rotund stomach. "Don't hesitate," the massive goblin rumbled. "It's kill or be killed."

I snickered. "Don't worry, don't worry! There'll be no dying today. On my side, at least."

The goblins all hefted their weapons, and a roar from the goblin boss sent them charging towards me. I cackled with glee as they ran directly into what would definitely be their doom!

A pair of the goblins died almost instantly as my dagger flashed out and severed their heads from their bodies. One of them had almost managed to guard, but my Starry Night Dagger was too strong a weapon for them. The top half of the chipped cleaver clattered to the ground, and I smiled. The blood of the two dead goblins dripped on the ground, and there was a brief moment of hesitation as the goblins paused. "What are you waiting for? Kill the Ium!" the boss roared, and the other goblins forced themselves into motion.

I met the club of one goblin braver than the rest of them, and rewarded the bravery with a heavy kick to its stomach. The goblin flew backwards and I brought my fist back to punch the next one. The number of goblins wasn't even a concern, because I could kill each of them with a single Art with my dagger.

One goblin, smarter than the rest of his friends by virtue of the fact that his friends were lying in various amounts of pieces on the ground around him, ran past me and into the woods. I turned to chase after him when something told me to dodge. A grunt slipped out of me when I raised my blade to guard my back just in time for heavy metal to crash down on it.

"Hey," I snarled as I turned around slowly. "...You're in my way."

The boss of the goblins had finally made his move; his desperate attack from behind had been blocked almost contemptuously, and while I had to strain a _little_ bit thanks to the oversized butter knife that he was swinging around, his weak broadsword wasn't strong enough to make my arm more than shake. In fact, I could see the blade losing Life every second it was pressed against my Divine Object. "You shitty knight!" the goblin boss howled. "I'm going to turn you into meat!"

"Spit your threats to Vecta in the afterlife," I sneered. It was child's play to bring my fist up, and my body flowed in a motion that I'd never practiced before but felt perfectly natural; I just followed the steps that were laid out in front of me. I moved forward and spun on my foot, thrusting up with the heel of my gauntlet. My palm struck right at the giant goblin's wrist and it grunted in pain. More importantly, it dropped the sword. In a flash, the weapon landed in my hand and I'd spun it around, driving it forward directly into the creature's throat.

The giant goblin clawed at its throat as it died, until it finally collapsed to the ground. I nodded in satisfaction as I took in the corpses around me. I bet the Pontifex will be really happy with me! I killed a whole lot! Buuuuut, she'll be upset if I leave the job half-done. All that's left is that one goblin, right? Heh. Gotta go take care of that, then.

As I started following the obvious tracks it left in the woods, my eyes narrowed. They were retracing the tracks I'd made on the way here almost perfectly, and that meant... That meant the goblin was going to stumble on Red and the mayor, wasn't it?

Sure enough, halfway back to my dragon I heard a scream followed shortly by a roar and a short gout of flame that lit up the night sky. Things returned to their natural silence a moment later, and I shook my head. Truly, goblins are stupid, idiotic creatures. Why would anything else willingly charge towards a dragon?

"I've returned," I said as I stepped into the clearing that Red had made. "I see I'm not the only visitor." The pile of charred bones and ash was the only evidence that the goblin I'd been chasing down had made it this far -

"S-Sir Integrity Knight! Please! Help me!"

The pile of charred bones and ash, and the horribly wounded mayor of Veshire were the only evidence that the goblin I'd been chasing had made it this far, I hastily amended my thought. His rich and colorful silks had become sticky with his blood, and with the rate the stain was spreading his Life must be plunging at an alarming rate. He stared up at me with tears and snot running down his face, and gestured at the gaping wound running down his chest.

"Ah... System call..."

_*Th-thump*_

I trailed off as that weird feeling pounded in my chest again. The face of that maid after he'd bruised her, the way his people were barely scraping by and he lived in opulence... Did I truly, actually have to heal him? My healing Sacred Arts were limited in power, and there was a very good chance he might lose all of his Life despite my best attempts.

So why should I make the attempt at all?

It wasn't mandated in the orders that I'd been given that I must attempt to save a life; I was only prevented from injuring another person and deliberately lowering their Life. He'd lowered that girl's Life, even temporarily, while executing his noble's right to judge. So... if I healed him, wouldn't that be allowing him to lower other girls' Life in the future? Sophistry, maybe, but what did it matter?

"Sir... Integrity Knight?"

I smiled under my helmet. "Don't worry. I'm sure they'll mourn for you."

"N-No! You can't! Please! Please please please...!" His begging trailed off into whimpers and moaning as his Life trickled down little by little. I didn't bother to continue watching him. Instead, I went to Red and made sure she was all set for the long flight back to Centoria. She'd fed on something earlier, but that didn't mean I'd given the straps and everything else a firm check before the short trip out here. I didn't want to fall off halfway, after all.

...It fell quiet a little bit after that.

The flight back to Centoria was long, long enough that I was close to falling asleep on Red's back. But... The whimpering and the moaning as the mayor died... as I _killed_ him... Heh. Heheh. Kya hah hah. It felt pretty good to listen to, didn't it? It made me feel all warm on the inside! Heh... Heh...

By the time I got back to Centoria, the sun had been up again for some time and I was drowsy on Red's back. I barely registered landing at the Central Cathedral, much less going through the motions to take Red's gear off and get it put away. It was the kind of haze where I blinked and suddenly realized that I'd been walking through the halls and had no idea if I'd ensured that Red had food or not.

"Ah... Rythin, you've returned. Welcome back."

I let out a heavy sigh and turned to face Alice. I might have been swaying back and forth slightly. I wasn't sure. "What do you want, Alice?"

The blonde girl blinked and shook her head. "I... I simply..."

"If there's nothing _important_," I hissed, "then leave me alone."

She stared at me, and then her features went stony - wait, had they been softer and kinder before now? "I see. Very well then," she said. "Whatever your plans are, I will leave you to them." Alice turned on her heels and stormed away, walking down the hall.

Huh? What even was her problem? Whatever. I was exhausted. I needed sleep.

Unfortunately, before I could reach my room and fall asleep, I was accosted by the red and blue bouncing ball. "Number Thirty-One!" the Prime Senator whined. "Another mission for you. Fly east tomorrow and kill the demons that are starting to sniff around the eastern edge of the empire!"

I sighed as he bounced away. No rest for the wicked, is there...?

* * *

**May 20th, 380 HE**

I strode through the halls of the Central Cathedral. Another mission! I was so excited. It had been ages since the Pontifex had given me orders to do something. I was definitely going to impress her with this.

A full year had gone by since I'd descended from heaven to act as one of Highest Order Administrator's most powerful servants. A full year of my service, and most of it was... well, boring. The fight against the white tiger was my only _real_ challenge the entire time I'd lived in the human empire. Everything else had been simple tasks. 'Patrol the edge of the southern empire'. 'Tend to the roses in the garden of the Central Cathedral'. And most recently, 'Assist Alice in training Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-Two'.

Just the memory of that last order made me grit my teeth. Seriously, I was worth so much more than a glorified babysitter to the newest Integrity Knight. So what if he'd been called only four or so months after I had? I still knew more than enough to be given control of his training. But no. Bercouli must have interfered or something, because Eldrie had attached himself to the little princess's side after only a few weeks.

Tch. So what if I still had trouble activating whatever that stupid 'Incarnation' was? I'd never failed the pontifex yet, but they hadn't even given me a chance to train Eldrie before handing him over to Alice. She wasn't even that good a teacher _anyway_, she hadn't exactly taught me much of anything other than my Sacred Arts.

...Whatever. I wouldn't want to teach him anyway. I had my hands full sparring with those children that used daggers. I always beat them, so it was a good way to blow off steam after Alice or Bercouli had pissed me off. Which, all things considered, tended to happen whenever I ran into them in the halls of the cathedral. Fighting Lady Fanatio was also fun, since she was a _challenge_. It really had been a surprise when I'd shattered her helmet and realized she was a woman, but who cares about her gender when I can go all out and fight?

But that was over now! I had my orders now, and that meant I was going to get out of this place. As much as I was devoted to the Axiom Church, the Central Cathedral didn't really keep me that entertained. Plus, there was just something about _flying_ that I enjoyed. Even though I was in the saddle the whole time, it felt... achingly familiar. I must have flown quite a bit before being called down to the human world.

I finally reached the stairs and went down the two flights to reach the 30th Floor. As I reached a landing, I turned - and stopped dead in my tracks. My lips twisted into a scowl just out of habit. "Ah," Alice said. Distaste colored her voice. "Rythin."

"Alice," I said just as flatly.

"Lady Alice," a voice said. My eyes darted away from Alice to briefly recognize that Eldrie was standing just behind Alice on the steps, but my gaze went right back to Alice immediately. He wasn't important. Not in the long run. Alice, on the other hand... I did my best to avoid her, but no matter what I did I couldn't help but run into her from time to time.

"Lady Alice," I amended smoothly. "And greetings to you as well, Eldrie." Synthesis Thirty-Two. My technical subordinate, but the puppy never left Alice's side when he could help it. He thought his crush was _subtle_ or something, just because Alice was either too dense to notice or too kind to let him down easily. The man was pathetic, honestly - I had no such distractions when it came to my work.

'Lady' Alice sighed and turned back to Eldrie. "As I've told you before, the title is not necessary, Eldrie. We are all equals as Integrity Knights, and though I may be more senior, that does not mean you must show such... such..."

"I couldn't possibly!" Eldrie said immediately. "You are due all the respect I could give." Tch. The puppy thinks he's being so clever by not looking at me, doesn't he? I could hear the unspoken 'unlike some Integrity Knights' he didn't say. Little upstart. "Ah - Rythin," he said as he turned back to me. "Would you care for some training? I know that you train by yourself, but some light sparring couldn't be amiss, and would be a valuable experience for both of us, according to Lady Alice."

Hmm... A fight against Eldrie, was it? It was certainly an option. I had... oh, roughly about an eighty percent chance at victory? I was a much more vicious fighter than he was, since he was so obsessed with honor and respectability - something else he picked up from Alice, likely - but while he wasn't really that tough that whip of his was still tricky to deal with. If I wasn't careful, I could still lose.

"Unfortunately, I can't at the moment," I said finally.

"I would like to test my skills against you myself," Alice mused. "It has been a while since our fight, hasn't it?"

My lips thinned under my helmet. "My apologies, Lady Alice," I said, "but I must leave. Our match must wait until a later date, I'm afraid." Much, much later, if there was anything I could do about it.

Alice shook her head. "A shame."

"Truly." My voice was dry. "If you'll excuse me?"

Alice and Eldrie stepped aside as I continued down the stairs. As I was just barely in earshot of the pair, I heard Alice say, "He only fights guaranteed victories. Training dummies and children..."

Say it to my face, woman. Unless you're a coward.

"Well, Red," I said when I entered the hangar, "we've got orders. Get ready to fly for a while, we're heading out to the edge of the southern empire."

_'Oh, finally,' Chudelkin had said when he'd seen me. 'One of you Knights walks by! Hmmm, you seem... Ahh, it doesn't matter!' He'd bounced back and forth, hopping on one leg at a time. 'Time to get going! The senators are reporting that there's movement in the Dark Territory!'_

My lips curved into a smirk as I patted the scales on Red's neck. She stared at me flatly. Sometimes, it felt like my dragon was almost able to understand me. ...But that couldn't be it. "How do you feel about slaughtering some giants?"

With a low hum, Red's lips pulled back and she bared her teeth.

"Heh. Then let's get flying, shall we?"

It didn't take long for me to finish armoring up Red. I'd gotten good at it in the months of flying around the human empire. The servants... I didn't miss how they always 'coincidentally' saddled up Alice's dragons and the other dragons first, and then by the time I got there mine was the last one to get suited up for flying. I'd just learned to put it on myself. So much faster that way. Once the straps were tight under her chin and body, I jumped into the saddle and we were off.

We were able to get away from the Central Cathedral quickly enough, and as I relaxed in the saddle I let out a huge sigh. All the tension in my body seemed to just melt away with the slow, heavy flaps of Red's wings and the roar of the wind in my hair. Because naturally, I took my helmet off as soon as I could. Sometimes I didn't _like_ wearing it all the time at the Central Cathedral - but, on the other hand, it made it really easy to make rude faces at Bercouli while maintaining plausible deniability.

Was it childish? Probably. But it made me feel better. And, as long as I wasn't openly disrespectful (hence the helmet) I wasn't doing anything the Pontifex wouldn't approve of.

Now... My mission. The Dark Territory I was flying to was the giant's territory, if I recalled my lessons correctly. Their attacks aren't as common as those of the goblins that tried to invade through the northern caves, but when they popped up someone had to put them down. In cases like these, I was sent out to deal with the approach of the creatures. There were other Integrity Knights, but Chudelkin and the Pontifex trusted me to eliminate their enemies! And eliminate them I would.

But until then, I only had to relax and take a nice nap on the way. The first few times I'd flown on Red's back, I'd been too nervous to sleep - but now, I'd become accustomed to the rocking and shaking. Besides, I'd carefully probed the limits of Red's controlling Sacred Arts; she couldn't drop me.

...

My breathing hitched and I woke up abruptly. The wind blew at my hair and quickly dried off the cold sweat that beaded on my forehead. What... I could barely remember the dream. But there was someone with... brown hair, and whiskers? No. That couldn't be possible. Several of the Integrity Knights and the students at the Church had brown hair, but whiskers were a facial feature that I'd never seen before. I must have just eaten something off before going to sleep.

Or, maybe dealing with Alice and Eldrie gave me nightmares, even though it had been a few days since I'd seen them. I snorted and shook my head.

Red craned her neck back as if to look at me, and I shook my head again and blinked to clear the last of the cobwebs from my mind. "How much further do you think, Red?" I asked her. Since naturally I didn't get an answer, I looked down over the land we were passing. It was mostly desert, with the very infrequent splash of color from a village. I must have napped for a little bit, since we were so deep in the southern empire I couldn't see Centoria when I turned back.

Somehow, I felt more tired than when I'd left the church. I yawned and rubbed at my eyes, and then hunched over close to Red's back. Maybe I'd feel better after I slaughtered the giants that were causing trouble. A fight usually cheered me up. ...Usually, at least. As long as I won.

Two days had passed by while we flew over the deserts of Southacroith, and before too much longer the large mountain that marked the edge of the human territory loomed in our sight. I held onto the reins tightly as Red folded her wings and dove forward a little bit. The ground rushed towards us, and for an instant my mind conjured up an image of what would happen if I crashed into the ground -

\- and then Red flapped her wings once and she leveled off to fly through the South Corridor. The gravity crushed me in my seat, but I didn't mind. This wasn't the first time I'd been through the South Corridor on a mission, and it probably wouldn't be the last. Since the Corridor itself was basically a thin path between two massive, brown mountains, there wasn't really much to look at. Every time, it felt like the loading zone took longer and longer to fly through.

I blinked. ...Loading zone? What was that?

That sort of thing happened from time to time. After waking up from a dream, sometimes strange words or images would flash through my mine. It was bizarre - but nothing to worry about. Administrator had assured me of that. When we slept, Lunaria would visit us and bestow nonsense dreams; they were often strange words or images that didn't exist in reality. The simple explanation was enough to soothe me, and from that point on I'd simply ignored the strange things.

Another yawn escaped me as Red emerged from the canyon. Mmmm, sleepy... I'd need another nap after slaughtering the giants. I wish I didn't even have to get out of bed, some days. It just felt so difficult to get up and go. But, we were in the Dark Territory now, and that meant it was time for me to get to work.

I saw the giants approaching from a distance, and I prepared myself for combat when Red let out a scream of challenge and dove. Her massive tail would be useful for striking them, but in the end...

I jumped free from the saddle just as Red slammed into the nearest giant. I was gloriously weightless for an instant, until my dagger sliced down the giant next to the one that Red had knocked down. Its hand fell to the ground with a heavy thud, severed just above the elbow by my blade, and I cackled when the blood sprayed. "Kya hah hah! Yes! Now _this_ is what it's like to be alive!" My heart was pounding! I couldn't stop the smile that appeared on my face. For once, I was _feeling_ something! "Now come on!"

The giants were tall, but it didn't stop me. One jump carried me up to the knee, and from there I jumped up to its chest and buried my dagger in its throat. Another slice dealt with the rest of its Life, and as I fell I simply spread my arms. Red swooped in at the last moment and my hands caught in her reins.

"Try to last longer than one bell!" I laughed and taunted the remaining giants. "Just kidding! You won't possibly live that long!"

Sure enough, it didn't even take thirty minutes to slaughter all of the giants. My Starry Night Dagger was a Divine Object forged by Administrator, after all. These creatures couldn't possibly compare. Still, it was almost a little disappointing, in a way; because Solus's blessing was so weak in the Dark Territory, these giants couldn't use Sacred Arts. So all I needed was the weapon itself, and not the Full Control Art - there was no point to wasting its Life when I wouldn't even be able to use the Sacred Art-countering effect its shadows had.

I flicked the blood away from my blade and wiped it off. Nothing really _grew_ in the Dark Territory, so there wasn't any grass nearby; I just had to make do with the cooling flesh of one of the giant's corpses. A quick inspection of the blade, and I sighed. I'd need to clean it properly once we were back in the Central Cathedral.

When I looked up at the sky, I noticed the sun starting to set. "We'd better get going, Red," I said. "Two more days in the sky... At least you don't need to eat that often."

Red's answering growl made me smile faintly. "Oh, don't give me that," I said. "You're still going to get fed when we get back, and I know that you're capable of lasting this long. Besides, I saw you eat an arm or three from those giants we killed." The dragon seemed to almost seem embarrassed. At least she was on-board with my whole plan of 'murder things'. The dragon clearly took an almost sadistic glee in roasting the giants alive while we were fighting them, though I wish she would be more careful in the blasts. I almost got caught in them from time to time.

Flying back on the dragon's back was... well, it was boring, honestly. The first several times I'd gone flying, it had been amazing - but now, it was just another method of transportation. If the Cathedral weren't so far away that I'd need over a week on the best horses to get there, I'd walk just for a change of pace. Still... There were _some_ perks to flying on a dragon's back. Namely that I could just curl up and go to sleep again.

I yawned and relaxed. My eyes were heavy, and I just wanted to sleep for days...

* * *

**Being an Integrity Knight kinda sucks for him, doesn't it? Still, he's got the wonderful Pontifex to serve, so Rythin should be happy.**

**That being said, timeskip - I know some people might be against it, but I'll be honest here. There's not really anything interesting happening during the intervening time. Rythin just did more of the same things over and over again, day after day. I got the main highlights in (Rythin kills the tiger, he kills his first corrupt mayor, and then timeskip to around the important time) but showing everything would be... maybe too much boring stuff. Rythin flies out, he kills, he flies back.**

**Anyway. If Reki can do it, so can I.**

**Many thanks to everyone that favorited, followed, or reviewed. The TvTropes page for this series can always use some love, if you want!**


	5. Betrayal

**Chapter 5: Betrayal**

* * *

I woke up abruptly. There was a brief moment of panic as I realized where I was, and then I relaxed. I was still on Red's back, but we were sinking quickly. "Wha-?" I mumbled. "What are you doing, Red?"

The dragon snorted as her wings beat. It was dark, but when I looked around I could still see a few pinpricks of light. Red was landing in the middle of a village. "Seriously? You couldn't wait until you got back? It can't be more than a day or two left," I sighed. "You gluttonous beast."

Red's answering growl was probably roughly, 'I want to eat and that means you're going to feed me'. Stacia, why did you see fit to grace me with such a creature? I could have had something like Amayori, who never disobeyed Alice ever. Sigh. I guess we were taking a break.

Though... That meant I could indulge a little bit, didn't it? After all, nobody really expected me back at any sort of time, and it wasn't like they knew where I was stopping...

I licked my lips and a smile spread across my face as I put the helmet on. "Oh, alright, have it your way." Already, my heart was starting to pound again. This was going to be fun!

When Red finally landed, we were greeted by a small group of men carrying lanterns in their hands. The thin and open shirts they were wearing matched what I'd seen as standard pajamas in the deserts of Southacroith. "Integrity Knight!" one braver than the rest said. "May I ask the reason for your arrival?"

"Supplies," I said flatly. "Do you have any amount of food you could spare? My dragon needs something small." Red's eyes narrowed at me, but I ignored the dragon. She got fed more than enough at the Central Cathedral.

"Certainly... Certainly! Anything to help you," the brave man said. "Ah - I'm the mayor of this village, so you don't need to worry about my authority to offer such things."

I hadn't, in the slightest.

"Will fruits be enough?" one of the other men asked. "I have some surplus..."

"That will be fine, thank you."

The mayor cleared his throat. "In the meantime... It will take some time to gather enough food for your mount, and so would you care to rest at my house? Any hospitality we could show you," he said, "is what we can offer."

I smiled under my helmet. "That would be wonderful, thank you," I said. "It has been a long flight, and stretching my legs sounds like just the thing."

The men laughed at the simple joke, and the mayor gestured to a few of the men to start gathering the food for Red. "When they bring it, eat," I commanded the dragon. Red sighed and settled in place to wait. "Now, your house...?"

"Certainly!" The mayor jumped at the chance. "This way, Sir Integrity Knight."

The house he led me to was large, made out of a sand-colored stone with interesting carvings decorating the side. It looked very nice, not that I particularly cared all that much. What was more interesting was the way it was markedly nicer than every other house nearby; the fencing that marked the territory belonging to this household stretched out to encompass a lot of land. The inside was just as opulent as the outside, if not more so with the rich silks lining the wall as hanging tapestries and the occasional carpet. There were even a few decorative pieces of pottery sitting on tables.

With everything put together like that, it painted a very interesting picture that I was more than happy to see. Now, all I needed to do was get on the mayor's good side - which wasn't going to be difficult at all. "It's a lovely house," I said.

"Thank you very much! We are the most well-off family in town," he said.

"I can see that. You must all work very hard. Ah... How did you get so much land?" I chuckled. "Your fenced area is massive."

The mayor laughed. "There's a story behind that, actually! You see, back when I'd just inherited my position as mayor from my father, a very powerful storm came through town. Naturally, whenever a sandstorm hits us, it blows down a large chunk of the fences between my property and our neighbors, who had been equal in size as my own family." He shook his head. "All I needed to do was have a group of hard-working young men out in the storm, setting up fences as they were knocked down, and the territory I owned expanded at a large rate."

I made a quiet noise. "They were out in the storm? Wasn't that dangerous?"

"Only a small amount," the mayor said. "Their Life dropped a small amount, but nobody was in any _real_ danger. It was nothing the sisters at our church couldn't heal, after all! Hahaha!"

"Ah, I see." Behind my helmet, I smiled. Yes, this would be perfect. "And... There is one more thing you could assist me with, if you're willing."

His eyes lit up. "Certainly! I would be honored to do so!"

"Wonderful. Let's go see if your men have scrounged up enough fruit for my dragon, and then you can help me."

When we returned, I saw Red happily guzzling down fruit after fruit from the ones piled up in front of her. I swiped one and stashed it in a saddlebag for later, and then mounted up on Red's back. The mayor of the town - I just realized, I never got his name, did I? - scrambled up behind me. His fumbling was a little awkward, and I held back a snicker of laughter at his squirming while he got comfortable.

"Alright Red, you know the drill. Let's go." I snapped the reins and Red launched herself into the air, the heavy downbeats of her wings stirring up wind that blew things everywhere. Once she gained enough height, she started circling the village. "So, Mr. Mayor, do you happen to know where the closest other villages are, in every direction?"

"Oh, um, yes, of course, Integrity Knight." The mayor gathered himself, though he couldn't stop glancing down at the ground from time to time, and let out a shaky breath. "Yes, there is a town about two days' ride north - er, well, on your dragon it would take less time, naturally, but two days on a horse. And then one four days away to the south, and... A-And one to the east!"

"Be calm," I told him. "Red wouldn't drop you."

He took a deep breath, and then sighed. "I'm very sorry, Integrity Knight."

"Don't be, it's understandable." Red flapped her wings and started flying to the west. "Only Integrity Knights know the secrets of taming and riding dragons, after all." Though really those 'secrets' were held by the Highest Order Administrator and not us personally.

The mayor nodded and stared at Red's scales. "Yes, I see... It makes sense. I can't quite say I'm used t-to being this high up..." I simply nodded and sat in silence as Red flew.

It took about an hour of flying before the man started to shift. "Ah, forgive me Integrity Knight, but..."

"Did you know?" I asked. He was interrupted in the middle of his sentence, but he was searching for his words anyway. I didn't feel bad about it. "That Integrity Knights aren't totally bound by the Taboo Index. We have special dispensation while carrying out our duties. As, of course, our duties take us into the Dark Territory from time to time."

"Certainly, but -"

"And one of those rules lessened in our duties," I said, "is the restriction against willingly lowering a human's Life." I smiled under my helmet. "In fact, we've been given leave to lower a human's Life by up to seventy percent if we deem it necessary."

The mayor shivered. Hmm, it was cold up here, wasn't it? "Forgive me for questioning you, Sir Integrity Knight, but why are you telling me such a thing?"

"That's a good question, isn't it?" I chuckled and stood up on Red's back. She knew the signal and spread her wings out, gliding through the air effortlessly so that I wasn't rocked. "I guess I'll tell you, since it won't matter." I leaned forward. "The moment someone learns that fact, their fate is sealed."

"Wha -"

He didn't manage to finish the exclamation on his lips before my dagger raked down his face, cutting a crimson line across his right eye. The man shrieked in pain as he staggered to his feet, and my dagger flashed out again three times. The severed limbs - both arms and one leg - tumbled from Red's back. I'd have to clean up the scales later; the stench of blood was thick in the air, and I'm sure some got all over me and her.

"Don't worry," I said as he stared at me, too surprised and stunned by pain to speak. "Your Life value is still above thirty percent. Now... farewell."

One shove was all it took for him to lose his balance and fall away from Red. I watched with a smile on my face as he plummeted to the ground, but after a few seconds I couldn't see his figure in the gloom of night. Red flapped her wings and started flying north towards the Central Cathedral as I took my seat again.

"Kya hah hah! Red, did you see that?!" I giggled. "I was like, 'Shove!' and then he just fell! The look on his face was so amazing! Kya hah hah hah!"

Yes! That's the feeling I was looking for! When I had life and death in my hands, and then I forced the scales to bend one way or another! It felt so good! Naturally, that wasn't the first time I'd done something like that. It was a semi-frequent occurrence, when I got the urge to kill a human. I'd just snoop around a village until I found someone that pissed me off for abusing their authority, and then just take them up high and kick them off. I just loved watching their faces as they fell!

"Ahh..." I settled down to enjoy the rest of the flight home.

Sadly, the rush of almost-killing yet another villager noble too full of their own status died away way before I made it back to the Central Cathedral. I was reduced to idly calling up Sacred Arts to play around with in the air just for _something_ to keep me occupied, since I wasn't able to fall asleep the entire rest of the way. When Red landed on the 30th Floor, I couldn't have been more grateful; I jumped down from her back and left the rest to the attendants.

I yawned as I walked up the stairs to the 95th Floor; obviously, since I hadn't slept for a few days, I was feeling very, very sleepy. My eyelids felt like they were made of steel weights for how hard it was to keep them open. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait too long for Chudelkin to bounce his way out of the Senator's quarters. "Well well well," he said, folding his arms as he stared up at me. "You're back already, Integrity Knight?"

"The Pontifex's enemies have been eliminated," I said. I swayed on my feet a little bit. The riot of colors in his outfit hurt my tired eyes and made it hard to focus on the butterball. "The giants that massed together and approached the southern border of the human empire have all been eliminated."

"Hmm, yes, yes, I see, I see! Very good. You may go now," Chudelkin said. "I'll inform the Pontifex myself. Go and... do whatever it is you Integrity Knights do."

I didn't even bother protesting against his shitty personality. I'd grown used to the awful garbage clown. Besides, if I protested, that would stop me from getting to sleep sooner. Tch, I'd love to just break his neck and be done with it, but Chudelkin _was_ the Prime Senator. Second in rank only to Administrator herself.

Another yawn escaped me as I walked back to my bed. By this point I was basically asleep, and everything I was doing I did on autopilot. After I closed the door behind me, I blinked. I had to chant a Sacred Art to get in and out of my room, and while I remembered _locking_ it when I left several days ago I couldn't remember whether I'd chanted the Sacred Art to unlock it just then.

I had to have done that, right? I probably did. It wasn't like there was any reason to break into my room or anything like that anyway. It was small and cramped, and I only used it to sleep in. Which was the most important thing for me to do right then.

The bed felt so, so comfortable compared to Red's scales...

...

_*Knock knock knock*_

The pounding on my door was what finally stirred me from my sleep. I rolled out of bed and yawned before sliding it open. "What," I said flatly.

Alice stood on the other side of the door, and lowered her hand from where she'd raised it to keep knocking. "Ah... You were asleep. I apologize, Rythin," she said, not sounding apologetic at all. "But there are intruders in the Central Cathedral. They were taken prisoner several days ago, but escaped from their cells. Eldrie attempted to subdue them, but they used a strange Art that left him unconscious."

"Thanks for the warning."

"They are agents of the Dark Territory, making an attempt on the life of the Pontifex," Alice told me. "We are to kill them on sight."

I waved at her. "Got it, got it. Now unless you want to watch me get changed, let me close the door."

The golden-haired knight's lips pursed together but she didn't reply. Instead, she turned on her heel and walked away.

Intruders, huh? And we're supposed to kill them? Sounds like fun. I yawned and called up a set of thermal and cryogenic elements to create cold water, then splashed my face until I felt like I was finally awake. After that, I set off for the highest floor I could be in - the 96th Floor. My reasons for that choice were obvious. First and foremost, I didn't really care about what happened along the way to the other Integrity Knights. My only priority was ensuring that Administrator wasn't hurt. If anything, I _wanted_ the other Integrity Knights to get killed by the Dark Territory invaders. That would serve them _right_ for how they treated me.

In any event, the other Integrity Knights would either defeat the intruders, in which case I didn't have to do anything, or they'd lose to the intruders, in which case the intruders would be severely weakened and I'd be able to slaughter them easily. No matter how I looked at it, it was a win-win!

With a happy smile, I climbed the stairs to the 96th Floor. All I had to do now? Wait.

...

My light doze was interrupted when a cackling, "Hooo hoo hoo haa haa hahah hoo!" echoed up to me. I watched Chudelkin bounce up the steps, carrying an unconscious body in his hands. Blue shirt, blonde hair... There was an empty sheath on the body. Though... that tunic looked familiar. I felt like I'd seen the style somewhere before...

"Prime Senator," I said. "Is that one of the intruders?"

"Yes it is," he snapped. "Now do your job already! There's still more! Protect the Pontifex, you lousy... arrgh!" Without pausing, he stormed past me. It was pretty funny to watch him carry the body of what I'd figured to be a boy judging by the pants, when the boy was so much bigger than the rotund little shrimp.

I sighed after Chudelkin passed into the hall to the Senator's quarters. I really wanted to just keep sleeping, but if one of the intruders had been apprehended already, then that meant I needed to put in work. If there were more, then that meant... Kya hah hah! That meant Alice had been killed! How wonderful. It couldn't have happened to a more irritating princess!

My hearing picked something up coming from the floor below me, and I smiled to myself. "Showtime," I said.

I picked myself up and slowly descended the steps. My steps were even and smooth, perfectly spaced apart. After all, I needed to be intimidating here. As my boots clicked down each step, more and more of the 95th Floor revealed itself. At the very edge of the floor were two figures, one on top of the other. The one on the ground had dark hair, disheveled as the boy laid on his stomach and panted for breath. And the one on top of him, resplendent in her golden armor that matched her golden hair, was...

"Kirito," breathed Alice as she looked down at the boy.

Ah. Oh, this was going to be a _treat_.

* * *

For being on the ship, the breakfast was surprisingly decent. The cafeteria was on the top level of the ship, so Rinko, Asuna, and I had taken a seat next to the window; there was plenty of sunlight pouring through the huge glass panes, and I stretched out in luxury at the warmth. "Mmmm," I practically purred. "Feels good~."

"I swear, you're practically half cat," Asuna said.

I cracked one eye open and glanced at her, then grinned and brought a hand up in a pawing motion. "Nya~. Explains why we're eating fish, at least."

Our breakfast was some fresh-grilled fish, a small salad, and some little bread pastries. Nick had called them... crescents? That didn't seem quite right, since he'd pronounced it weirdly like he'd been clearing his throat at the time. Plus some green tea for Asuna, of course. I'd chosen to go with the orange juice just like Rinko.

Asuna shook her head and poked at her fish with a fork before she set it down and looked out the window. "Maybe..."

I folded my arms and rested my chin on them. Huh, she hadn't scolded me for having bad table manners? But that was such an Asuna thing to do, she couldn't possibly have missed the chance? When I looked at her again, she was staring at the ocean but didn't seem to be looking at it. Maybe she was thinking about Kazuto and Nick again.

Across from us, Rinko set her knife down on the table with a tiny _clink_. There was still some butter on it from where she'd been spreading it on her crescent. "Hey, Asuna," she began.

"Hm?"

"How's your fish?" Rinko asked. "I bet they caught it right off the side of the Turtle."

"...Yeah, maybe they did," Asuna said with a small laugh. "Or, maybe they brought it..."

Asuna and Rinko turned to look out the window, and I sat up properly to see what my friend was talking about. Sure enough, there was a dark shadow in the water, just on the edge of the horizon. "Hmm..." Rinko said. "I doubt it. It doesn't look like a fishing boat - way too many antennae."

"So, it's a battleship, then?" I asked.

"No. It's Japanese." The voice from behind caught our attention and we all turned to see a man in a suit standing by our table. Hey, I recognized him! He was that suit that met us at our helicopter and took us inside! I didn't remember his name though. Whoops. "We don't have battleships in service anymore." Then he brought his hand up in a polite salute. "Miss Yuuki, Miss Izawa, Doctor Koujiro. Morning."

"Good morning," Asuna and I chorused.

"Good morning, Mr. Nakanishi," Rinko said. Oh, right, Nakanishi, that was his name. If I had my little notebook, I'd love to write it down so I didn't forget again. "If that's not a warship, is it SDF?"

Nakanishi smiled. "_M_-SDF. And, 'escort ship' is the official designation. The one out there is the 'DD-119 Asahi'. She's a 5-ton general purpose vessel."

Ooh, it looked like we'd got him started on something he liked talking about. It's always neat when someone starts talking about things they love, since they can just go for hours. Kinda reminded me of the way that Kazuto could just go for hours about his grinding or Nick and his martial arts.

Asuna, Rinko, and I all shared a quiet giggle as Nakanishi continued, "She's one of two escort ships in service. Her sister ship is the Shiranui. They are the second-"

"Hey, um, it looks like it's moving away now," Asuna said.

I peered at the ship. It... looked like a ship. "How can ya tell?" I asked her.

Nakanishi raised his hand to his eyes to protect them from the sunlight as he stared at the ship, and his smile disappeared. "Pardon me," he said, suddenly all business. I watched as he stepped away from the table and pulled out a phone from his pocket. "Lieutenant Colonel Kikuoka? I just saw the Asahi changing course to the west. Wasn't she supposed to stay with us until 1200, the day after tomorrow?"

I frowned. That doesn't seem like it was something that was planned. Asuna and I exchanged a worried glance.

"...Yes sir, right away." Nakanishi hung up his phone and looked over his shoulder at us. "Excuse me, ladies. Something's come up." Without another word he bowed slightly and walked away with purpose.

"Hmm. It must be something important," Rinko said.

Asuna nodded. "Yeah..."

I looked out the window again to see if there was any change to the ship. It looked perfectly normal, but things were acting a little strangely. I wonder...

Asuna let out a sigh and turned back to her meal. While she poked at one of the cherry tomatoes that came with the salad, I started cutting up my fish. Whatever was going on, I wanted to face it on a full stomach. There was something strange going on with this Turtle, and I didn't know what.

* * *

The sound of my bootsteps echoed loudly in the silence of midnight. I couldn't help but enjoy the dramatic sound - because as soon as I reached the bottom of the steps, the black-haired boy had pushed himself to his feet and stared at me. "Crap, another one..." he muttered.

I smiled beneath my helmet. This was absolutely perfect. His brow was soaked in sweat, and I could see the subtle shakes of his arms and legs. Plus, for some unknown reason, Alice's right eye was covered in a black cloth and a golden chain was wrapped around her waist. I had no idea why Alice was standing next to the invader and not trying to kill him already, but that was fine.

It gave me an excuse to kill her, after all.

"Well, well, well," I hissed. "Look who it is. Hello, Alice." I liked how my voice echoed in the helmet. It made things seem so much more menacing, just like how my I'd deliberately spaced my steps out to be more ominous as I descended from the shadows of the upper floor. "Or would you prefer Lady Alice? Eldrie always wanted me to call you that. Or perhaps something better would suit you. Maybe _**traitor**_."

Alice gritted her teeth. "This isn't -"

"Oh, you don't need to worry about defending yourself." I smirked and shook my head. "The simple fact that you're standing next to an invader from the Dark Territory and _not_ severing his head from his body means that you've betrayed the Highest Order Administrator. And that means, you're a traitor. Which means I can kill you too! Kya hah hah!"

"You're insane!" Alice shouted. "Turning on your fellow Integrity Knight like that! I promise you, I have a reason for my actions, if you will listen!"

"Kya hah hah!" I cackled, and then abruptly cut off the laughter. "Just like that?" I asked in a perfectly casual tone of voice. "No. Of course not. After all... I've wanted to do this for a long time!"

Another cackle burst from me as I launched myself forward, dagger blade scything towards her unprotected neck. Alice gasped and reached for her sword, but I was faster! I've always been faster, Alice! Kya hah hah! KYA HAH HAH HAH -

_*Clang!*_

"...Hah?" My arm shook as my blade halted without touching her skin. I still tried desperately to force the dagger forward; I just couldn't comprehend what had happened. My dagger had stopped? No. Had _been_ stopped. The black blade that had put itself between me and my target shook, but the boy held it firmly despite his clear exhaustion. "How unexpected! What a _hero_ you are, protecting someone who's probably going to kill you anyway! Hehehahahah!"

The boy grunted as I shoved him forward, but a single step backwards was all he took. My eye twitched. This shitty boy! He dares to stand in front of me, and _stop_ me? I'm an Integrity Knight! Administrator called _me_ from heaven to serve her, and this shitty wooden sword was able to stop me?! "I'm not going to let you touch Alice!" he growled. "She cares about this world, even if you don't!"

"Of course I don't care!" I wasn't getting anywhere with trying to match our strengths. When I pulled back my dagger without any warning, though, the boy shifted his weight forward when he suddenly won the struggle. That was all the opening I needed to lash out with my leg. I spun and slammed my boot into his side. He was wearing a heavy coat, but I still felt something inside give from the force of my blow, and he went tumbling like a rag doll. "But I'll deal with you later, dark spawn. Just sit there and wait your turn."

Kuh... The only surprise there was that a human's sword could match my Divine Object. I was still stronger than he was when it came to brute force. Hopefully shattering those ribs would be enough to keep him down until Alice's Life ticked down to zero. With a smirk, I turned back to Alice - and then flinched.

No. I didn't flinch. I wouldn't flinch from _Alice_. "Kirito," Alice commanded, "stay down."

"Kiri...to...?" I repeated the name. It felt... strange on my lips. It felt almost like I'd heard and said it before. But that was impossible. I'd never known anyone named Kirito before, and _certainly_ not someone from the Dark Territory. I would have killed them, after all. Administrator's orders. "Tch. Worry about your lover later, Alice, because I'm the one that's going to kill you!"

She'd had time to draw her Fragrant Olive Sword, which was bad. I gritted my teeth and charged forward, sliding under her initial slash. The wind from the blow nearly shook me but I turned it into a spin instead to give my dagger more force. I needed the power to clash with her longsword, and with a shout I struck. Instead of aiming for the neck again, this time the point of my dagger was aimed at her right underarm, a weak point in the armor.

Alice's eyes widened and she twisted out of the way, but I grinned and slipped to my left. Kya hah hah! She thought I wouldn't notice, but her first slash was really really off! That eyepatch of hers wasn't just for show! Weakened like this... I could totally kill her!

"I'm going to enjoy this," I purred as I stalked to the left. Alice backed up to keep me in her vision, holding her sword in front of her. Circling her was too easy, though! "Always so proud. So, so _perfect_. The Princess of the Integrity Knights. I'm going to enjoy killing you, because that'll be payback! For all the times you mocked me, for all the times you laughed and sneered at me behind my back!"

"I never... You're insane," Alice declared.

Her eye shifted past me, and in that instant I darted forward and closed the gap. It took her a heartbeat to react and that was all the time in the world I needed. Once I was inside her guard, I slashed with my dagger and aimed to blind her other eye. I just needed to -

"Discharge!"

I whipped around and my eyes widened. The boy had staggered to his feet and raised a hand; I'd been so focused on taunting Alice that I'd missed him using a Sacred Art. The thermal elements were slow-moving projectiles, so I snapped my hand up. "System call generate cryogenic element form element bird shape counter thermal element discharge!" The rapid patter of the Sacred Art fell off of my tongue and several blue bird-shaped elements were in the air moments later.

It was just enough of a distraction that Alice was able to slip away from my attack and ruin my perfect chance to finally finally FINALLY pay Alice back. Damn iiiiit! The golden girl took a few steps back and braced herself before lunging towards me. Her speed was still super incredible despite only having one eye and I snarled at her. I dodged out of the way and tried to slash at her, but I only caught the edge of her cloak.

"Alice!" Kirito shouted.

The girl brought her sword up in a flourish that forced me to disengage rather than risk the clash. Her eye wouldn't make her weaker, even if she was surprisingly weak thanks to whatever those two had been doing before I attacked. I darted in and let my dagger lick at her defenses, but even a quick combo didn't manage to break through her guard. I growled again, this time out loud, and backed away from Alice. "System call," I snarled. "Generate luminous element, burst!"

The explosion of light was painful to my eyes even though I'd closed them. It had to have been even worse for Alice - "I knew you were going to try that!" Alice shouted, and my eyes opened in shock. She'd covered her face with her cloak. "System call! Generate aerial element!"

Her wind blades slashed towards me, but I took a deep breath and _moved_. It almost felt like my body blurred when I moved, and dancing between the wind was as simple as walking forward towards Alice while my lips moved. "No way..." Kirito croaked. "System call -"

"Too slow!" I was ready this time, and when he raised his hand I was already leaping towards him. "Don't get me twice, you don't!"

"I'm your opponent!" Alice had already put herself between us, and her sword slashed out. But I smirked beneath my helmet and whipped my hand forward. I'd transformed my right gauntlet into a red chain, stealing her idea, and the heavy metal ball at the end smashed into her chest. She cried out in pain and fell back but I didn't lose the beat, lunging forward with my dagger ready to slice.

The tip of my dagger cut into her cheek and I snickered at the blood that beaded on the tip of my knife. Without hesitating I spun and lashed out again at Alice the second she tried to open her mouth to chant a Sacred Art. I wasn't going to let her get me twice with that Enhance Armament of hers! I ducked low under her retaliatory slash, and -

My foot refused to move and I reflexively down, where a small layer of ice had frozen one boot to the ground. That boy! I'd forgotten about him! "Haaah!" Alice shouted, and her sword crashed down towards my head in a heavy attack that would heavily reduce my Life if it didn't outright kill me.

As the blade descended, some part of me seemed to remember this feeling, the feeling of facing death in the face - and I reacted on instinct. My body twisted in a move that I'd never tried practicing before but felt like I'd used it a million times before; my knife rose into the air when I tossed it, and my hands grabbed Alice's descending arm. A single twist and she flew over my shoulder effortlessly. I snatched my Starry Night Dagger from the air and chanted a quick Sacred Art to melt the ice sealing my movement.

I had no idea how I did that, but it didn't stop me from approaching Alice from where she'd risen to one knee. With a shout she slashed at me, and I tilted my head to the side. The small movement was enough that her Fragrant Olive Sword slashed through my helmet but missed the killing blow that Alice had been aiming for.

_*Crack.*_

I snarled and ripped the helmet from my head. The crack in it had made it pointless. "You _missed_, Alice. Not so _perfect_, are you!?"

"Why are you fighting!" Alice shouted at me. "Our duty is to protect the people and their peace! Not fight each other!"

Who gives a damn about the empire and its people! I just want to kill you! "FANCY WORDS FOR A TRAITOR!"

"Rythin!" Alice shouted. "I have made up my mind! And if that means I have to kill you to properly protect the Human Empire, then so be it!"

"No way... It can't be..."

I twisted and glanced over my shoulder. The boy from the Dark Empire was staring at me in shock, like he couldn't believe what was going on. When he caught sight of me, his face grew even paler than before. His hand lowered to his side and he took a single step forward. "Is that..."

"If you're not going to fight, then I'll kill you first!" I crossed the distance between us in two leaping steps and sneered when he flinched back. Coward! It'll be easy to drive my dagger through your heart! I thrust forward, and Kirito -

"...What...?" I couldn't help but let the word slip out. I'd stopped. This time, it wasn't like Alice had blocked me, or this boy had managed to raise his black blade. I had just halted my attack, right as my dagger touched the spot over his chest. I couldn't explain why I'd pulled the fatal blow. Just... His name, I guess. It'd flashed through my mind right before I struck, and it'd just stopped me in my tracks.

I shook my head and gritted my teeth. No! I wasn't going to let some shitty boy from the Dark Territory stop me! I had to kill him, and then destroy Alice! Then Administrator would praise me! She would care about me! She would need me!

"Enough."

The flurry of olive petals that surrounded me was like a slap in the face. "No!" I shouted. "I can't lose! I haven't _KILLED_ you yet!" The razor-sharp petals swirled in the air and then slammed into my chest. Damn you...

I flew backwards from the impact, but that didn't stop me. As I slid on the smooth stone, I was still preparing to attack! All I'd need to do was lunge to my feet and slice Alice's throat with my dagger, and then I could take out the boy! I finally stopped and as the flower petals swirled around Alice I twisted my body to get to my feet, and -

"Ghk..." I tilted my head back. It was the safest way to get my neck away from the wicked tip of Alice's golden blade. "Shit."

"Do you have any last words, Rythin?" Alice asked me. Her single eye was cold and hard.

"I hope you suffer when the Pontifex gets to you," I hissed. "Traitors like you -"

"Stop it! Both of you!"

Alice looked up from where she'd been glaring at me. My breath caught in my throat as the tip of her sword pressed down, but in the end she pulled back slightly. "I understand you believe that the Integrity Knights are necessary to defend against the Dark Territory, Kirito," she said. What? Dark Territory? Wasn't he from the Dark Territory? What was going _on_?! "But Rythin is... He won't be helpful in that endeavor."

"Won't be helpful? Fuck you, Alice," I snarled. The point pressed a little closer to my neck as if to say, 'See?' Arrogant golden girl.

"Please..." Kirito practically begged her. "Please, Alice. I... I know him."

"What?!" Alice and I exploded at the same time. She gave me a shocked expression, and I gritted my teeth rather than repeat something she was saying again. "That isn't possible - wait... You're saying that, like me..."

Kirito nodded. "Yes. Somehow, Administrator stole parts of his memories. Rythin is... he was like a brother to me."

"...Hang on." My voice growled out of my throat. "Back that the _fuck_ up." Kirito flinched when I pushed myself up. Alice gasped and tightened her grip on her sword, but I shoved it out of the way. A line of crimson blood opened up on my palm and I ignored it. "Repeat that."

"You're... like a brother?"

"DON'T FUCK WITH ME!" I exploded. "Not that. The part about Administrator. TELL ME!"

Kirito winced, one hand pressing at his side. Oh, right. Where I'd kicked him. Heh. I still felt pretty good about that, not gonna lie. "I don't know what exactly it entails," he said slowly, "but the Integrity Knights are created by an elaborate Sacred Art that Administrator uses to create loyal bodyguards. They're supposed to protect her from C- from enemies." He tapped his forehead. "I think she plants some sort of crystal in here. I saw it come out of Eldrie earlier, before..."

He trailed off and looked almost apologetic. Like I care what happened to that obnoxious weakling! I hope he died! "Really? You expect me to believe that?" I snarled.

"It's true."

I glared at Alice as she spoke up. "Explain."

She pressed the palm of her hand to her blindfold. "When Kirito explained these things to me, I denied them at first. But he kept talking, and explained my past. I came from a village in the northern territory, called Rulid. I have a sister. Her name is Selka." She stood firmly, the wind tugging at her cloak and making it wind around her body dramatically. "The Pontifex is using us, Rythin. Abusing us, and stealing our lives. Why do you still fight for her?"

"I... I..." I shook my head. I didn't care about the people! I didn't care about the territory. I just wanted to kill her, and if that meant that I had to fight anyone, even the Administrator, then I'd -

_I'd serve her loyally_

\- then I'd serve her loyally and defeat her... defeat, her...

My eyes widened. That wasn't me. I never thought like that. I didn't serve ANYONE loyally, no matter who they were. Backstabbing and betrayal were the only things I could expect, and so they were the only things I gave -

_except for Administrator, who I served_

\- except for Administrator, who - NO! That's not ME! That's...

My breaths started coming faster and Kirito stepped forward. "Rythin?" he asked. "Are you okay? Your eye -"

I snapped my head up to look at him. When had I bowed my head? "Don't touch me!" I snarled. "Administrator... she put something in my head!" The boy's eyes widened. "They're not my thoughts, but I can still hear them whispering to me. Telling me 'Serve the Pontifex' and 'Protect her from all harm', and who GIVES a shit!"

"Rythin Synthesis Thirty-One, calm yourself!" Alice snapped.

"Don't tell me to calm down, GET THIS FUCKING VOICE, OUT OF MY HEAD!" I shouted. M-Maybe this was all a huge joke. Ha ha, very funny, I'm not being controlled by anyone at all, and Administrator will reward me for not falling for it! Hah. Ha hah. I can't even lie to myself about it, can I? The voice in my head is influencing me, and it was planted there by Administrator so she could -

_so she could ensure I would protect her_

\- so she could _fucking_ control me.

Well. Game's over now, Administrator. I'm coming for you. And no whispers in my ear are going to stop me from putting my dagger through your heart.

I let out a slow breath and straightened up. Alice and Kirito stiffened, but I just turned and walked for the stairs. "Where are you going?" Alice asked.

A low laugh rumbled out of me. "To kill that Highest Order Bitch," I said.

...

I didn't hesitate. I didn't even stop to heal the cut on my hand as I climbed the stairs to the 96th Floor. The entrance to the Senator's quarters didn't slow me down, nor did the sight of the pure white room with the chalk-white faces imprisoned in the walls. They didn't matter. The voice in my head whispered that I should be fighting the intruders to protect the Pontifex, but it only made me cackle. All I had to do... Hahaha! All I had to do was just figure out what made the voice mad and then do that!

"Gyaaah! No no nonononono! I can't belieeeeeve it!"

The whining, petulant voice floated out from beyond the Senator's room, and I smiled in predatory glee. There we are... Chudelkin. You're who I was looking for. You have some answers that I desperately, desperately need. His sniveling only grew louder as I stalked down the hall on quiet feet, and before too much longer I walked into what had to be the ugliest room I'd ever seen.

Everywhere I looked, colors competed to see which one was the most offensive when combined with its neighbors. Nothing went in a straight line, and it made my brain hurt trying to comprehend how exactly a cabinet would be useful when it was slanted at three different angles at once. Tch. This room was absolutely disgusting. It looked like a clown had thrown up in here and then taken design inspiration from the resulting splatter. Even after my brain managed to comprehend the riot of color, it broke _again_ when I saw the awful polka-dots and the massive bed taking up most of the center of the room.

Plus the stuffed animals. _All the stuffed animals._

I shook my head. Focus. I had to focus. I knew what to listen for now, and wouldn't be fooled by the voice again, but it was still worrying. How long had it been whispering in my ear? Ever since I encountered the boy from the Dark... No. Since I encountered Kirito? Or maybe, and the thought of this made my throat dry, it had been affecting me even before that. Maybe all the way back at the beginning when I'd been called to serve the Highest Order Bitch?

"My Lady! You mustn't! Ooooh, you can't do that! It's so _scandalous_!"

Whatever. There's a shrieking and flailing clown right in front of me, and I'm sure the Prime Senator can answer a few questions for me.

"Chudelkin." My voice ground through his comical cries as he stared at a crystal ball in his hands. He tossed it in the air with an incredibly loud shriek, and whatever he was watching faded away. Before he could react, I grabbed the clown by the collar and hoisted him into the air. My smirk widened with predatory glee at the way his legs kicked in the air. "Hello, Prime Senator. I have some questions, and I think you're the perfect clown to answer them."

"Number Thirty-One! What are you doing in here?" His eyes narrowed. "You know you're forbidden from passing the main door of the 96th -"

"Quiet," I said almost serenely. "Now, I'm in here because there's something strange happening. When I confronted the intruder, he said that he knew me, somehow. My name, my face..." I tilted my head. "He said something I really wanted to know the truth about. Is it true that Integrity Knights are created by the Administrator upstairs? That she takes residents of the Human Empire and forces them to be her slaves?"

Chudelkin looked up at me in surprise - and then his face twisted into an incredibly disgusting smirk. It made a shiver run down my spine, and my left hand drifted down. "Keeeeeheeheehee! So, you finally figured it out, huh? You shitty Knights are just puppets! Dolls that do what I order you to do! I still remember the day we sealed your memories!" He licked his lips. "Crying and pleading, 'Don't take my memories! They're all I have left!'"

"Hm."

"I still love thinking about it! When I can't sleep at night, I think about your tear-stained face and then I roll around laughing until the sun comes up!" His leer seemed... a little bit uncomfortable. "You were brought here from the western town, and what a pathetic sight you were! Chained up and crying, sniveling for your mother -"

He stopped and looked down, his expression going slack. I glanced down at where my dagger was digging into his heart. "You talk too much," I said peacefully. I didn't know precisely what was happening, but he was trying to buy time for some reason. Besides... Unlike when Kirito called my name, none of what he'd been talking about struck any chords of familiarity. He was lying through his teeth about where I'd come from and what had happened once I was brought to the Central Cathedral. I didn't need to listen any further.

Suddenly, the slack imp's mouth stretched back into a sneer. The fat clown expanded even more than before, swelling up beyond his original rotund form to a comically large balloon. I didn't laugh though, because this was _definitely_ some sort of Sacred Art - and the Prime Senator was next in power behind the Pontifex. His body nearly filled the room, stretching his god-awful outfit to the breaking point -

\- Then he exploded. Pink smoke filled the room and I gasped before covering my mouth and nose with my cloak. "System call," I snarled. This stuff had to be poisonous...

"Hooooo hoo hoo hah hah hah hee hoo!" Chudelkin cackled, his head and collar floating on the smoke. The obnoxious laughing continued even as he disappeared in the smog. "Iiiiidiot!" I growled under my breath at the clown's taunt. "Idiot!"

"Burst!" I snapped. A blast of wind exploded from around me, blowing the smoke away and clearing the air around me. I still coughed from the remnants of the foul-tasting Sacred Art. When I could see the whole room, my eyes narrowed. One of the green and yellow - and purple and blue, my mind noted with absent distaste - was pushed to the side to reveal a secret passage. Stairs went up, and I growled. "Bastard... Get back heeere!"

I raced up the steps, two at a time. Going up meant I was going to catch Chudelkin, but. It also meant I was going towards Administrator. I needed to have some _words_ with her as well.

"System call! Generate lumi..."

My eyes narrowed. Was the clown going to try to attack me as soon as I reached the top of staircase? I hesitated at the top and focused, but... There wasn't any more chanting, and the strange sense that I had that could help me determine people hiding didn't really register in my awareness. Strange... I wonder if the clown hid himself somehow?

I lunged forward in a roll, despite my heavy metal armor. I propped myself up on one knee and scanned the room, but there was nothing. No clown, no attack from hiding, nothing at all. My eyes narrowed. He'd definitely been chanting something, but did that mean I was already victim to his Sacred Art? ...No, I don't think so. I can't sense any malice in the air at all.

And, since I had no idea what _that_ thought meant even while it passed through my mind, I looked around at the room I'd found myself in. Aside from a few designs on the wall, there weren't any new exits. The stairs heading up... I glanced up at the ceiling and smirked. I see. There was a hole at the top, and that hole most likely lead to the 100th Floor of the Central Cathedral. In other words, I just had to get up there and then all of my questions would finally have answers. Or I'd kill Administrator. One of the two.

There was a raised platform right below the circular hole in the ceiling, and I hadn't lasted this long as an Integrity Knight without being able to figure out simple addition like that. Plus, the elevator was familiar enough to me at this point. I stepped onto the circular platform, and then paused for a second. Right, yes, I forgot. I would have to actually do this myself instead of having the elevator raise and lower at a command. "Frustrating. System call." Where was that elevator girl when I needed her, anyway?

The aerial element lifted me up into the air, and the disc hovered smoothly as it rose. I exhaled slowly while I passed through the circular tunnel, and then blinked when the light from the top reached my eyes. It was incredibly bright, but I suppose that was to be expected; this was, after all, Administrator's sanctum. The room was large and circular, with beautiful murals painted on the ceiling that glimmered like stars in sections. It was as if she'd taken the night sky and turned the stars into her own personal decorations, almost.

I stepped off of the circular panel when it rose to be flush with the floor, and I stepped forward. The floor of the chamber was largely bare, except for the massive bed in the center. I'd heard rumors that Administrator spent most of her time asleep. If her bed was the one that I was looking at, I couldn't blame her; it had a luxurious-looking carpet all around the base, and the bed itself had a rich crimson blanket draped over it that fell to the floor. The curtain around the bed was just as crimson as the blanket, but almost translucent. I could definitely see a shadow. Which meant that Administrator was here.

"ADMINISTRATOR!" I howled. "GET OUT HERE!"

I panted. My throat felt raw from the force of my shout, and the shadow moving inside the bed curtain stopped moving. "My, you interrupted me at the worst possible moment." Even now, the voice was beautiful and terrifying, and it sent shivers down my spine. I gritted my teeth and ignored my feelings. They were manufactured by her, after all. "Just a few minutes more and my latest Integrity Knight would be complete."

The curtains were swept aside a moment later. Administrator emerged from the bed, setting her feet gently on the carpet. I also ignored the fact that she was naked. It meant nothing to me. On the bed there was a boy, slumped over and motionless. From where I was standing, I couldn't tell if he was alive or dead, but given Administrator's words he was probably unconscious.

"Who gives a rat fuck about that," I said. "You did something to me. When you created me as your Integrity Knight, you stole my memories and hid them away so that I'd serve you."

"And what if I did?" She sat down on - on midair, and my eyes widened at the effortless display of power. The Sacred Art needed to do such a thing was... "Tell me, who told you my dirty little secret? Was it that brat from the library? Or perhaps you regained your memories all on your own?"

Despite her easy tone, her eyes were flat and emotionless. There was something dark pulsing in her face, sour and resentful. "Brat in the... No, enough of your words," I snarled. "You lied to me. Controlled me!"

"Dear, dear Rythin," she cooed. "You poor child. Was my promise not enough for you? Serve me loyally, and in return I would give you my heart. You would be loved no matter what, and I would be your family."

"...Family?" I repeated softly, tasting the words. For an instant, a pair of whiskers under brown curls flashed across my mind and I gritted my teeth. I pressed at my temple to dull the pounding headache. "Loved, no matter what?"

"Yes, that's right." Administrator gazed down at me. "Eternal love, and eternal companionship. I would _never_ betray you. But you've gone right ahead and done the very same to me. Truly, my heart weeps. But I shall give you one more chance. Take your weapon up and kill the intruders. Prevent them from reaching this sanctum for... oh, ten minutes. Do that, and I will forgive your transgressions and shower you with my love."

I nodded once. "My weapon. Yes." I pulled out the dagger she'd created for me and stared at the metal blade. "It's truly a piece of wonderful craftsmanship. You did an excellent job forging it." Administrator crossed her legs slowly and her eyes watched me. I could tell there was something in her rhythm that was confused at my actions.

The moment the beat I could hear shifted I launched myself forward. "It'll be PERFECT for killing you!" I roared. The dagger swept back and then slammed straight into her heart, and I smirked -

Administrator smiled, not moving a millimeter.

\- only for my mocking grin to disappear when a circle appeared between her and myself. The purple sigil shuddered and shook but held firm, and I screamed with rage as my blade halted just over her heart. A Sacred Art protected her from my blow! "Damn you, die!" I screamed louder. Air swirled around the chamber as the Sacred Art took effect, the symbols on its surface shifting and changing, and I brought my other hand forward to increase the pressure. For a glorious second, the dagger shifted closer, but the force of her barrier pushed back at me even fiercer than before and the tip of my blade was forced back step by step. "NO NO NO NO NO!"

The Sacred Art practically exploded outwards. The rich curtain around her bed was shredded from the force of the winds that blasted me away, and I tumbled in an awkward roll. Despite the pain thrumming through my body - the repelling blast must have taken a chunk from my Life - I'd kept my fist clenched around my dagger. Losing your weapon was a cardinal sin for an assassin, after all.

...Assassin...?

Administrator giggled at my pitiful form, even as the remaining shreds of her bedcurtain shattered. Their Life must have been totally erased. "Stab at me all you wish," she said, "I am impervious to it." She ran a finger along her chest, where not a single mark remained. "No metal object can damage my skin."

That Sacred Art... No metal object? "In that case," I growled, "I'll use something else!" My blade sank back into my sheath as I launched myself forward. My metal gauntlets hit the ground a few steps later and I brought my fists up.

I bet you never thought of this, bitch!

My punch rained down towards Administrator. She seemed almost surprised as my fist shot towards her head - and she just barely managed to dodge out of the way with a jerk of her head. Instead of crashing into her jaw, I hit nothing but air. She floated almost lazily to the side, away from the bed, but I didn't give her a second to breathe.

Before her feet graced the floor again, I was already there. The only thing I could rely on anymore was my own body, and that meant I only had my hands! I struck again with a chop towards her neck, but Administrator ducked again. I snarled and stabbed forward with my other hand. Again, I missed as Administrator swayed to the side. I was getting closer, though! This time, my attack struck her hair.

A few strands floated down and I smirked. Administrator's eyes were blank as she looked, and then her face twisted in a scowl. "You dare lay your hands on me, you little fool?! How dare you!"

"Stand still for a second, and I'll show you exactly how I dare!"

Administrator's face was ugly as she waved her hand. A chill shimmered in the air and I leapt back just in time before a wall of ice erupted from the ground. If I'd been caught by that, I would have been frozen solid! Of course, it also blocked her line of sight to me... "You ungrateful little brat," Administrator said. "But despite your best attempts, I'm not infuriated with you. Come back to me, Rythin. Let me fix up your Piety Module, and all those angry little thoughts will disappear again."

No. I won't let her unbalance me. Her words won't affect me any more! Instead of replying, I shot around the wall of ice and lunged towards the source of the voice. Administrator simply waved her hand again; this time, a shield formed from ice stood in my path. Instead of going around it, I drew back my fist and punched forward.

The ice shield shattered from the blow, the leftover shards disappearing as their temporary Life ran out, and I kept running for her. This was my choice! If I wanted to destroy Administrator and get my hands around her neck, this was a necessary sacrifice. I could see the path, laid out in red in front of me! The ice had tore at my hands and scratched them, but that didn't matter. I just clenched my fist harder and kept moving. "That won't stop me, Administrator!"

Administrator fell back again and another wave of her hand summoned shield after shield. I gritted my teeth and kept swinging, smashing through the ice she summoned to block the way between me and her. The ice shredded my skin and by the time the last shield was gone, my hands and forearms were littered with cuts; blood steadily dripped from the open wounds and dripped onto the floor.

But I still brought my hands up and swung at Administrator anyway. What good was tanking the damage if I didn't capitalize on it!?

With a smug smile, Administrator swayed back out of the punch. "Got you! GOT YOU!" I howled triumphantly. I flicked my wrist backwards and flung the contents of my clenched fist directly in Administrator's eyes. She cried out in surprise and pain as the blood that had pooled in my hand splattered across her face, dying it crimson red. "You'll never see me again! Say goodbye to your life, Administrator!"

Administrator quickly summoned a water element that passed across her face. The still-wet blood was quickly washed away, and she opened her eyes as she flung the dirty orb of water to the side. "A futile attempt at best-"

I cackled. In that brief hesitation, I'd already jumped in the air and brought my leg up. My heel - my bare heel, as I'd left my boots behind the wall of ice - was poised to crash down on Administrator, and she was totally unprepared for the attack. My leg swung down, directly onto her extended arm. The sick crack was sweet, sweet music to my ears!

"Don't look so proud of yourself." Administrator's arm, bent at an angle no arm should ever turn, suddenly twisted and spun all on its own. The snapping of her bones back into place followed shortly and she opened and closed her hand. "Have you any other tricks, or are you quite finished, little boy?"

"Khhhhh... You biiiiitch!" I howled, and struck again. Administrator ducked backwards, and this time she raised a hand. My eyes widened and I threw myself backwards -

\- just in time, as flame arrows launched themselves from the air at me. These Sacred Arts were so hot as to make the air ripple around them; even Alice had never been able to produce flames like these. I dodged backwards and to the side and each time I just managed to barely dodge the arrows, they slammed into the ground and exploded. Craters and pillars of smoke rose from the last few near misses. Sweat had already broken out on my forehead from the sheer heat of the elements, and sooner or later one of those arrows would get close enough that the explosion would-

*_Boom!_*

"Gah!" The shockwave of the explosion was enough to send me sliding backwards; even though I'd dodged the actual impact, I was still blown away. My body struck something and I toppled backwards, barely catching myself. My hands sank slightly and I realized I'd been maneuvered to the center of the room. That last blast had knocked me onto the bed. "Crap..."

"Say goodnight, Rythin," Administrator taunted me. She raised her hand, and a bright light gathered above her. "I promise this Sacred Art won't deplete your Life entirely. Though you may not survive with all your limbs intact... No matter. I can always repair that. Or maybe I'll simply remove the memories of your arm from your mind?"

Crap! I needed to stop her!

* * *

**A lot happening this chapter, huh? Well, that's what happens when Rythin is more than willing to ignore exposition and stop screwing around.**

**First off, yet another totally-not-actually-a-murder-because-that-would-be-against-the-Taboo-Index. Not the second, either. I like to think of it as Rythin's internal problems becoming someone else's external problems, temporarily. Oh well. I'm sure they deserved it. (Remember! Pre-character development, Rythin is in fact an unstable asshole.)**

**And then it's happened. He finally met Kirito. As you might be able to tell, Rythin going off immediately to talk to Administrator has caused some... interesting ripples to occur. I figured that since he didn't climb down a flight of steps to talk to Bercouli, he would arrive before Administrator had finished the Synthesis Ritual with Eugeo - in canon, it was wrapping up as Alice and Kirito entered Chudelkin's room, so this would definitely be faster.**

**There's also the fight, that too. I'm trying to explore a little bit with more _things_ happening during a given fight, so we'll see how this one comes out. Hopefully everyone likes it.**

**Many thanks to everyone that favorited, followed, or reviewed.**


	6. Knight Without Integrity

_"Say goodnight, Rythin," Administrator taunted me. She raised her hand, and a bright light gathered above her. "I promise this Sacred Art won't deplete your Life entirely. Though you may not survive with all your limbs intact... No matter. I can always repair that. Or maybe I'll simply remove the memories of your arm from your mind?"_

_Crap! I needed to stop her!_

* * *

**Chapter 6: Knight Without Integrity**

Think fast, Rythin! She's going to strike, and... Luminous elements. That's the weak point!

"System call!"

Administrator scoffed; she didn't understand what I was doing. But that was perfect. The words to the Sacred Arts rolled off my tongue, the chant culminating as soon as Administrator's ball of light finished charging. The purple-haired woman laughed loudly, and then -

Administrator leveled her hand at me. The swirling ball of bright white like a miniature sun erupted in a lance of light that screamed towards me.

At the same time, before Administrator acted, I did two things. The first was to discharge the Sacred Art I'd just chanted; a large plane appeared in front of me, as reflective as I could make it. The metallic element wouldn't hold off this strange Sacred Art for long, but the one time I'd seen Fanatio Synthesis Two's strongest attack it had made me wonder. 'Could the beams of light be reflected?' I'd played with some Luminous elements before but never at the level of power Fanatio's sword could reach.

The powerful collection of Luminous elements slammed into the Metallic shield I'd created. It held for a second, and I was almost impressed at how amazing I was - until the back side of the shield started to glow a cherry red as it swiftly melted under the concentrated power of the light. I gritted my teeth. That was too fast!

My Sacred Art shattered against Administrator's attack, and the beam of light crashed into the bed, destroying it almost instantly. The bed shattered as its Life struck zero and out of the corner of my eye I saw that blond boy that Administrator had been toying with fall to the ground. But that kid didn't matter.

I landed on my feet and glared at her. My wound... The beam of light that had pierced my side had burned through my armor and body without stopping. It stank of burned meat, but I wasn't bleeding heavily. So, I gripped the sheets from the bed that I'd managed to save from the attack. With a shout, I threw the sheets in the air.

The biggest problem with Administrator's Sacred Arts? She had to _aim_.

"What good do you think those will do you?" Administrator sneered. A snap of her fingers and frozen cryogenic arrows punched through the silky crimson sheets. Naturally, it was destroyed instantly.

"It did exactly what I wanted!" I shouted. When she'd used those Arts, she couldn't target my heart! They might have pierced my body, leaving wounds that poured blood, but even through the pain I was still alive and attacking. Administrator had just a second to react before my fist slammed straight into her gut, digging into the soft and vulnerable spot that would knock the wind from her lungs and -

That same, damnable Sacred Art appeared between my fist and Administrator. My fist froze centimeters from her skin and no matter how hard I pushed, it was like I was punching an immovable object. The activation of the Sacred Art was identical to the first time, although the sacred letters that made up the circle blocking me were packed more tightly. I snarled loudly and tried my best to push through, but just like last time the only thing that happened was purple lightning crackled around the impact point and I was forced backwards in a blast of wind.

"Damn iiiiiiit!" I howled. I staggered to my feet and glared at Administrator.

She smiled smugly. "What's wrong? I simply modified the Sacred Art's activation parameters."

Activation parameters, hmm? Well then. "System call," I growled.

While I chanted, Administrator shook her head at me. "This little petulant rebellion _hurts_ me, Integrity Knight," she said. "You would dare raise your hand against me, the arbiter of the goddesses' will upon the Human Empire. You cannot imagine the injury you've caused with your childish stunt. But my heart is large, Rythin. Once you're my perfect little puppet again, I'll forgive you and love you once more."

I'm going to kill this woman. I'm going to kill her and have a SMILE ON MY FACE WHILE I DO IT! "ENHANCE ARMAMENT!" I howled.

The Armament Full Control Sacred Art was the most complex single art I knew. It was an incredibly high-ranking Sacred Art that could pull forth the true value of the owner's weapon. The result of such a powerful Art could only be called a 'miracle', a gift granted by the goddesses that smile down on us.

However, the outcome of my Armament Full Control couldn't be called a 'miracle' but only a 'curse'. Darkness bloomed within my blade and swallowed up the stars trapped within. Wisps of shadow dripped from it and disappeared before they touched the ground. My weapon had been transformed, and with it? I was going to kill her.

I snarled and lunged forward again. This time, things would change!

Administrator shook her head. "Try all you wish, it won't change the outcome. Perhaps I'll drain your life and turn you into a jewel."

"DIE!" I howled. My bloodlust poured forth, pushing me to move one step closer and one heartbeat faster. My dagger slashed out, and Administrator contemptuously raised a hand to block the blade.

The Sacred Art that protected her appeared to clash against my dagger - and shattered as the darkened blade of my dagger drank deeply. "What?!" Administrator exclaimed, stumbling back. I smirked at the crimson line decorating her palm and flowed smoothly into the second strike of the combo drilled into me.

My Divine Object-class weapon. Like any useful Integrity Knight, I was able to call forth its hidden power with the Armament Full Control Sacred Art. Unlike the others, my blade's enhanced form was almost entirely useless. What good was it against creatures of the Dark Territory, that fought in such a blighted land? There were no Sacred Arts there, and so I never needed to unleash the power of my Starry Night Dagger. But here? In the heart of the Central Cathedral, against the Pontifex?

Naturally, the ability to destroy any Sacred Art and scatter the resources used to craft it would be _quite_ useful. And so, in an instant, the protective shell that Administrator had to have been relying on to protect herself from me was gone.

"You -!" Even as she fell back, Administrator's bloody palm glowed with a green light as wind swirled around it. She gathered so quickly! The hurricane force winds began to roar towards me, but my blade severed the gathered power at its source in a sweeping horizontal slice. Before she could react appropriately, I slashed up with my blade.

Crimson blood splattered across the formerly pristine floor as I severed Administrator's right hand at the wrist. Her stump oozed blood slowly, and I cackled. "I'm coming for your head next, bitch!"

"How dare you talk to her like that?! You, you, you insolent ruffian!"

I jumped away as the awful clown bounced forth from _somewhere_. Maybe he'd hidden under the bed until it had been destroyed. He'd taken the time to patch up his costume from somewhere, but the white patches were utterly hideous and clashed with the rest of it terribly. In other words, totally normal for his uniform. "I'm going to kill her, Chudelkin," I pointed out almost idly. "It really doesn't matter how I talk to her."

"Gaaaaah!" The clown stamped his foot. "Yoooooou bastard! I know! Instead of killing you, I'll turn you into a horse! Hoo hoo hah hah hoo!" He started hopping up and down like he was riding the horse he'd just talked about, one hand gripping phantom reins while the other swatted at the air. "And then I'll run around riding you until you fall over! Kee hee hah hoo hah!"

I kept half of my attention on Chudelkin, but watched Administrator. The scowling bitch was the main threat here - but when she walked over and picked up her hand, I smirked. She concentrated and a pale green light surrounded the wrist for a second. When it faded, though, her wrist hadn't healed in the slightest despite the very powerful Sacred Art she had to have used. "Kya hah hah! It won't work like that!" I cackled. Naturally, Sacred Arts for healing wouldn't work on anything severed by my Enhanced Armament. "Don't worry, I'll take the other hand soon enough!"

"Sh-Shut your mouth!" Eyes wide, Chudelkin stopped hopping up and down and pointed at me in rage. "You shitty Knight! You're just worthless puppets to do as you're told!"

"Keep talking, clown, and I'll remove the tongue from your mouth first," I snapped.

Administrator tilted her head as she gazed at me, her sole hand pressed against her oozing stump. "Hmm... It was about time to reset Bercouli and Fanatio," she said. "It _has_ been almost a century since I erased their memories. But you... You've only belonged to me for a year now. Could it be that you were influenced by the irregular units that climbed the tower?" She gazed down at the blond boy on the floor. "Or... maybe it's because you yourself were an irregularity. A visitor from the other world..."

"_**What**_." Everything stopped for me. My heartbeat, the slow drip of Administrator's blood on the floor, and even Chudelkin's rant. Those words. "_**Explain. Now.**_"

Ignoring my words as if I hadn't spoken, Administrator uncrossed her legs and stood up. "Well, in the end, it will take a thorough examination to know the cause... Now. Chudelkin." The idle curiosity that had taken over her face disappeared, and she looked at Chudelkin with dark anger clouding her eyes. The clown looked at her in shock and, if I wished hard enough, a little bit of anger. "Since I am _so_ very generous, I shall give you the chance to restore your tattered reputation. I do not care how, just... _deal_ with him."

"B-But my Lady -!"

My blade passed through the clown's body with no resistance. The Prime Senator may be quite skilled with Sacred Arts, but against me that meant nothing at all. Not to me. This time, he couldn't use tricks like before to save himself.

Chudelkin crumpled like a deflated balloon and I flung his body across the hall with a contemptuous swing. His garish corpse crumpled to the ground with a wet-sounding thud.

"No more puppets, Administrator," I hissed. "Now it's just you and me."

Her eyes narrowed. "You have made yourself quite irritating, Rythin," she sighed. "Perhaps I was wrong to make you my servant after all. Or maybe the blame lies with one who chose to bring the serpent to her breast."

"I'm no snake," I snarled. "But I'll still plunge my fangs into your heart!"

My piece was said and I rushed forward. My knife swept out and I cackled as Administrator rose her other hand. That won't save you! That won't -

A hammer smashed into my side and sent me flying across the room. I felt ribs shatter under the impact and I coughed in pain when I slammed into a pillar in the opposite side of the room. My own blood splattered on the ground, and I slumped over in pain. I looked up despite the fire burning in my lungs and saw a massive golden hammer... hovering in midair? How...?

"Your weapon is a powerful counter to my Sacred Arts, it's true," Administrator said. "But, I've noticed that it only applies to the blade itself." The shadows that were swirling from the blade had disappeared as soon as it left my hands. This time, I hadn't managed to hold on to it. "What is the matter, Rythin? Didn't you say you were going to kill me?"

I gritted my teeth. Bitch... "I'm... Khaack!" The cough ripped out of me and I spat more blood up. I grimaced at the reminded that I'd been injured. "I'm not done... yet...!" I slammed my right hand into the ground and winced at the pain. It was barely enough to register through the haze of pain coming from my side, but I still accepted the pain. First one knee, then to my feet... As long as I could stand, I would fight.

My ribs were probably piercing my lungs, some part of me knew. The lacerations on my hands didn't hurt because my hands were numb from the cold, but I'd probably also shattered my knuckles when breaking through her shields earlier. And with every heartbeat my bloodloss was making me weaker and weaker. All of that didn't matter, if I could fight and kill her.

I glared at her, and didn't so much as shake.

"Oh well," Administrator sighed. "This next strike will deplete most of your Life. It will definitely be difficult to keep you alive. But I suppose that risk is suitable for a traitorous boy such as yourself. Sleep now, Rythin. You won't remember any of this if you wake up."

The hammer swung towards me, and I knew I wouldn't be able to dodge. I glared at Administrator and refused to blink, even as the golden hammer struck -

_*Crash!*_

Golden petals rushed in from the side of my vision and swirled in front of me. The hammer had crashed into them with a heavy blow, but it didn't budge the wall of olive petals. I stared at the sight in front of me, but my pain-fogged brain refused to understand what was going on. Those were... Alice's flowers? But what were they doing here?

The resolute form of the flowers' owner rose from the hole that led down a floor, and a breath shuddered out of me. Alice, the golden knight... But somehow, I didn't have the energy in me to hate any more. I just couldn't manage to bring back the loathing I felt for the beautiful girl.

As soon as she stepped forward the platform sank back down into the ground. It must be going to fetch someone else... I swayed on my feet and realized that the room had tilted quite rudely on me. It was... easier to sit down, but when I tried to sit the room swam again and I missed. Once I'd sprawled out on the floor, it was too hard to move my body again.

Alice glanced over her shoulder, and for a heartbeat we met gazes. I expected her to scoff in disgust and refuse to protect me, but... she turned back to Administrator without moving. Strange.

"Well, well. Alice. I am surprised to see you among those turning against me," Administrator said. "Your logic circuits don't seem to be malfunctioning, either... Perhaps those irregular units have influenced you?" Alice inhaled sharply, and Administrator smirked. The hammer hovered in the air behind her lazily. "What is it, Alice? Do you have something you wish to say to me? Go ahead and speak your mind. I won't be mad."

The golden-haired girl shook, and she took a single step backwards. Then, before her heel touched the ground, she stopped. After a moment of thought, she brought her foot back up. She didn't back down...? "I will, your Eminence," she said. Her finger brushed over her right eye.

"As of today," she said, "the proud order of Integrity Knights has fallen. All it took to bring it down were the swords of the rebels in this room and a floor below, and the obsession and deceit of your rule - represented by this cathedral! My duty is not to protect the church, but protect the innocents and safeguard their peace. It is your actions, more than anything else, that threaten the well-being of the citizens of the Human Empire."

Those words... she'd said them to me earlier. I hadn't cared. But... somehow, now, it felt like she was right...?

My eyes closed. It felt like my body was made entirely out of lead weight. Crap... My Life was running out...

Administrator said something but the fog was too much, but when I heard the words 'Piety Module' I clenched my fist. That thing... "...means she must have disabled the code 871 which was installed for me by her own volition! Rather than by sudden emotion!" What? "I won't know what happened until I run an analysis," she said. "For now... I shall have to deal with you myself."

I groaned and tried to roll over - until somehow it happened despite my weakness. I blinked blearily and tried to focus; a boy with black hair stared down with obvious concern. "You're really hurt," he said. "This is my fault... you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me. I have to heal you...! Alice, please protect us!"

"Fear not, Kirito," Alice said. "I will do my best."

"I hope that's enough..." Kirito muttered. "System call! Generate luminous element."

A pale green glow surrounded his hands and hovered over my side. The sudden bloom of warmth in my body made me shiver, and a heavy sigh slipped out of my body. It felt so good that I... I...

* * *

I had to stop myself from tapping my foot impatiently as the silly elevator floated back down to me. If I were back in my old AI body, I wouldn't have needed to worry about such a thing. But when I was this close to seeing Rythin again? To seeing my Nick again? There was no way I wanted to wait another second longer than I absolutely had to. Korosensei might have taught us to be patient and wait for the perfect moment to strike, but that didn't matter when I really, really wanted to see Nick!

Muuuuu! I really wish I had some way to make that disk hurry up. Alice and Kirito had already gone ahead of me, and I could hear the sounds of combat from down here.

As soon as the platform landed on the ground, I stopped puffing out my cheek and hopped on. "System call... Generate aerial element." Getting to this point had been a long, long journey, but I didn't mind. Even getting arrested and taken to the Central Cathedral had been another step closer, as awkward as getting carried away by the dragon had been.

"I'm almost there, Rythin," I said. "Stay safe."

Of course, the second I saw the top floor of the Central Cathedral, I knew I'd jinxed it. Alice was standing at the front, sword out and pointed at someone that would make Okajima cry tears of joy for being so blessed if he saw her. The purple-haired naked lady was hovering in midair with nothing to support her, legs crossed like she was sitting on an invisible chair, and did I mention she's totally naked?! Nick had explained the concept of Fluctlights back in our other world, so... maybe she was originally based on Professor Bitch's Fluctlight? The only thing marring her beauty was the stump of her right arm, dripping blood. Her hand was on the ground a little bit away.

Aside from Alice and Administrator, there was a blonde boy in blue lying motionless on the ground - that had to be Eugeo, and I noted it in the back of my mind - but Kirito was kneeling by a motionless body and it was only the assassination training that kept me from freezing up at the sight of the blood pooling around Rythin's body. My best friend wasn't moving and I could see how pale his face looked. "Kirito!" I gasped.

He looked over at me as I scrambled off of the rising disk even before it had come flush with the floor. Blood stained my socks and skirt, but I didn't care. "Ritsu," he said. "Don't worry, he's alive." He didn't stop his Sacred Art as he poured life into Rythin.

I let out a huge sigh of relief and smiled. "That's a relief."

"So, another little rat crawls out of the woodwork." The calm, detached voice fit Administrator as she hovered above us, though the blood still dripping from her stump ruined the effect. I wonder why the person with all the authority in this world hadn't healed herself? I bet Rythin had done something to her. "Though you... you're interesting, girl. You're not a human from the other side, like my little Knight or his friend. But you're still an irregular unit, perhaps born from an unregistered marriage. I wonder why I can't see your properties?"

"...I'm very sorry," I said with a polite bow, "but I'm a perfectly normal girl, Administrator... or would you prefer Quinella?"

Administrator giggled. "So the little imp from the library filled your head with all her ridiculous stories. Well, children? What _are_ you doing in my world? I doubt you've just stumbled in out of curiosity."

"You're right," Kirito said. He stood up and I hurriedly checked on Rythin; his breathing had stabilized but he'd lost a lot of blood. It didn't look like he was losing any more, though, so his Life shouldn't be dropping. "We didn't. Your world is gonna end real soon, and it's all your fault."

"I'm sorry, what?" Administrator said with an incredulous laugh. "Are you saying I'll destroy it?"

"Pretty much. The Dark Territory _will_ invade," Kirito said. "That's why you made the Integrity Knights, to stop it. But your faith in them's your mistake. They won't be enough."

Administrator giggled again. "That sounds exactly like something that little brat would say. How pitiful... Both her for being so desperate to have me expelled, and you for being so gullible."

"Madam Pontifex, if I may," Alice said. "The army of the dark has grown rapidly. If they invade now, the current number of Knights could not withstand it. The commander believe it, as did Vice Commander Fanatio." Alice closed her eyes. "And I... I as well." She opened her eyes and stared firmly at Administrator. "What is your plan, now that the order of Knights is no more? Do you think you alone can protect the Empire?

"But what angers me more than your hubris... You have stolen us Knights from our parents. From wives and husbands, brothers and sisters." Her fist clenched. "You sealed away our memories of them, and replaced them with lies of being summoned from a nonexistent heaven." She _slammed_ her sword into the ground, the tip gouging a small hole. "Pontifex! Could you not trust us to be loyal to you and respect your authority? Were we such a threat to you... you had to submit us to such a monstrous ritual, and force our souls into obedience?!"

She sniffed quietly, and I realized tears were streaming down her face.

"I do trust you, though," Administrator said. She held up a sparkling purple crystal. "In fact, I love you. The Piety Module installed in you Knights is proof of my love. A gift from me to you all. Why, this little thing frees you from the worry and pain of normal folk. You're my beautiful dolls, beautiful for all eternity."

"That isn't love."

Everyone looked at me, and I realized with surprise that I'd been the one to speak. "And what do you know of love, girl?" Administrator sneered.

"I don't know much." I pressed my hand to my chest. "I was created for one reason, and there was no room for love in my calculations. But even still, I grew to love my teacher and my friends. What you're talking about isn't love, Quinella." It wasn't even the misguided love that drove Nagisa's mother to such lengths. "You're just playing with people's lives and controlling them."

How dare she compare my feelings for Korosensei and E Class to the monstrous things she's done? My feelings for Nick?!

"Out of all the Knights," Alice began, her hands trembling on the hilt of her sword, "Unc- Commander Bercouli has shown you the deepest loyalty. But you do not know the man, even though he's served you faithfully... for three _hundred_ long years. Do you think he has not suffered once in all that time? Did you not know of the pain he carried in his heart?! _Are you that oblivious!?_"

"...You think so little of me. Of _course_ I knew." I gasped at Administrator's answer. "These things you speak of didn't start Bercouli recently, though. He brought them up ages ago... A century, I think? Yes, about that, give or take. I couldn't watch him brood over such trivialities, so I fixed him," Administrator said lightly. "Reset him, to be more specific." She giggled. "And he's not the only one. I reset every Knight over a century old. All of their painful memories and troubling thoughts were wiped away. Don't you worry, Alice. I'll overlook your transgressions and erase all the thoughts that made you so miserable too. Before you know it, you'll go back to being my puppet and have no need to think."

Alice simply closed her eyes. "You are correct," she said. "Right now, I feel enough pain and sadness to tear my heart into pieces. However, I choose to embrace it. I do not wish to erase what I have never felt before. This pain, serves a purpose. It reminds me what I am - a human being, and _not_ a puppet Knight. Madam Pontifex," she declared. "I do not want your so-called love, and I do not need _you_ to fix me!"

"I'm sad to hear that," Administrator said. "Unfortunately, what you want doesn't matter. As soon as I resynthesize you - and I will - the pesky feelings that trouble you now will be erased completely."

"Kinda like what you did to yourself in the past, huh?"

Kirito's question seemed to strike a nerve, and Administrator tilted her head to stare at him. "Watch it, little boy," she said. "Dredging up the past is considered quite rude."

"Why?" he asked. "You scared the truth will come out? No one's got the power to erase the past. Not even you. You were born a human and raised a human, and no matter you've got, that's one thing you can't change, can you?"

"I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, little boy from the outer world."

"All you want is to be a god," Kirito replied, "but you can never be a god because you're human. Being human means you make mistakes, and you made a big one. At this point, there's nothing you can do to fix it. You've got less Integrity Knights now. If the Dark Territory invades, who's gonna stop them? They'll destroy everything!"

"And who were the ones who corrupted some of my best Knights? They were you, children," Administrator said.

"If you're all that's left after this, maybe you can start over with a clean slate," Kirito said. "Maybe that's what you always wanted. Thing is, it ain't gonna go the way you want it. On the other side, there's the people who created this world who have final say over what happened to it. If they see the Human Empire fall, they'll think, 'Oh well. That didn't work. I guess we'll start over.' Then, one of them will push a button and everything will disappear. The mountains... the rivers... the towns... Every person here _and_ you. They'll erase it all in the blink of an eye."

I felt something uncomfortable curl in my stomach. There were people who could just... control something like that? They could have just erased everyone in E Class if we failed to kill Korosensei or something like that? I shivered at the thought of Nagisa and Karma and everyone disappearing at the press of a button. By the look of it, Alice felt just as uncomfortable at this revelation.

"Point taken," Administrator snapped. "But I have a feeling the same goes for your world too. _You_ must have a creator. Does your kind grapple with the thought of living under the whim of a higher power, as well? Do you strive to please this being, obey its laws, hoping it won't tire of you and wipe you out?"

The woman straightened up in midair and stretched her arms out wide. Her long purple hair floated behind her and she smiled peacefully. "I would be shocked if that were the case! As you say, your kind created our world. And if we fail them, they would delete us without a care. If that is how your kind treat us, boy, then you do not have the right to criticize me. I reject their authority. I will not pander to self-proclaimed gods, groveling for the right to continue existing. I refute them all.

"I exist for one reason alone - to rule over all in this world! That singular desire is what drives me, and gives me life. My legs are for climbing over others to greater heights, not to bend at the knee in subjugation!" Administrator's face twisted in a snarl and wind began to whip around her as she floated higher in the air. The gusts plucked at my clothes and hair and I'd never been more glad that I always wore my long hair in twintails. I couldn't imagine having my hair loose like Yukiko or Rio...

But... this was it. The moment that Korosensei had taught us to look for and recognize - the moment that our target let their guard down and opened themselves up to assassination. I only had one chance, and I couldn't let myself miss.

"And then what?!" Kirito shouted as he stepped forward. "You gonna sit back and let the Human Empire get destroyed? Are you gonna watch everything burn, alone on your token throne? A queen with no one to rule?"

My hand slipped around my neck and I tugged the tiny little dagger free. While my new, human body might not be fully trained in assassination techniques, I was still a member of E Class. I'd sat through the same lectures, and I knew the right thing to do here.

"On the contrary," Administrator said, and she closed her eyes. "I will not allow your kind to reset the Underworld. Nor will I allow the Final Stress Test to run its course either. I've prepared a new Sacred Art to -"

*_Shunk_*

She froze and stared at the tiny dagger embedded in her stomach, just below her rib cage. Naturally, I'd aimed for center mass, and hit my target without fail. A perfect assassination. "What is... No! This must be from that brat! It was created from her body, and that means...!"

The dagger began to glow purple and lines of code swirled around it as the stored Sacred Art activated. "Assassination complete!" I said.

"Stop! You can't!" Administrator snarled. "I am the ruler of this world! I can't be undone by some... some petty brats and a girl playing with stolen power!" The dagger fully dissolved into the lines of intricate letters. They surrounded Administrator's body and sank in, enveloping her with a purple aura. I noticed that the bleeding from her stump had completely ceased.

"Oh my. Well done." A voice resonated from nowhere. "I'd given up hope, but it seems you succeeded anyway."

"You coward! Letting others do your work for you while you hide in your musty hole!" Administrator strained, but couldn't move. "Sacred Art -"

"That will be quite enough of that."

The purple light wrapped around Administrator's figure shone brightly when Cardinal spoke. I had to close my eyes from the brightness of it, and when I opened them again the naked woman had disappeared - along with, surprisingly enough, the severed hand and the pool of blood spread across the floor.

Some of the letters still floated in the air, and Cardinal's voice echoed through them, though she was growing fainter. "Once I've dealt with Quinella, I shall return to you. Your friend needs help."

"Please, hurry," I begged her. "Rythin..."

"He will be fine." The last of the letters disappeared and I let out a quiet breath. Please, please be okay...

Rythin didn't stir even after five minutes had passed. I knelt down and rested his head on my lap, gently running my fingers through his hair. His skin was so cold... Beside him, Eugeo finally groaned. "My head..." he murmured, and then his eyes snapped open. "Administrator!"

He sat up abruptly, and then stopped when he realized the room was empty. Kirito grinned at him. "Morning, sleepy-head," he said. "You're finally awake."

"Kirito! ...Alice..." His eyes were glued to the golden knight. "What happened to Administrator?"

"I stabbed her with the dagger," I said. "I threw it at her while she was distracted and had let down her guard."

"So, it's over..." Eugeo sighed. "But... I'm glad you're okay, Kirito. Is Alice still our enemy?"

Alice shook her head. "No. It is clear to me now that you were never invaders from the Dark Territory, and that the Pontifex had been abusing our trust."

It looked like Eugeo wanted to say something, but more purple light filled the room as a column of light rose. A heavy wooden door appeared in that column and creaked open. Light spilled through as Cardinal floated through and looked around the room. She floated over to where I was sitting and stretched out her staff; all it took was a single tap from her staff and the horrible wound on Rythin's body vanished as if it had never existed.

"Thank you," I whispered. Then, I settled down to wait for him to wake up.

* * *

…

I opened my eyes. "What... happened...?"

"Huh - Oh! You're awake!" A girl with purple hair and blue eyes stared back at me. Unlike the Pontifex, her hair was short, aside from two long twintails. Her outfit was a stylized uniform of sorts - similar but not quite what Kirito had been wearing - with a red ribbon tied around her neck in a bow. "Kirito said you might wake up soon. I'm glad."

"Administrator," I ground out. "What..." When I tried to stand up, the girl pressed at my chest until I stopped moving. I realized that at some point my armor had been removed, probably when Kirito had been healing me.

Speaking of the boy, he was speaking in the center of the room with the blond boy that had been unconscious on Administrator's bed. Alice was standing next to both of them, and from where I was lying against the wall I could see her face. It was... amazing. Something was _different_ about her. Her expression was less stoic and way more animated than I'd ever seen before - and as I watched she giggled and shoved at Eugeo. I'd never heard her giggle, ever.

It was... weird. Alice was almost... cute. And wasn't _that_ a strange thought.

The girl knelt down beside me. "Who - oh, you mean Quinella." Quinella? Was that the bitch's name? "I'm not sure of all the details, but Kirito and I were given a special dagger that I needed to use on her. The perfect assassination weapons," she giggled. "One touch was all they'd need and a Sacred Art would activate." While she was talking, the girl slipped my arm over her shoulders and helped me stand.

"Yes. Though Kirito used his quite foolishly, to save the life of an Integrity Knight he battled." I glanced over at the voice. And then down, when I didn't see anyone right away.

"...A tiny librarian?"

The tiny librarian coughed. "Ahem. Yes. My name is Cardinal." I tilted my head. I was still a little confused by this strange, lost child. She carried a staff that was larger than she was, and wore some fancy-looking maroon robes. A large hat was perched on top of her head, but even with the hat she only came up to my chest. Her messy brown hair made my heart lurch for a second, but the feeling was gone almost before I noticed it.

"Who even are you?"

"It would be simpler to explain myself as the 'good' Pontifex of this world, as Kirito put it," she said. "I fought with Administrator two hundred years ago, but was forced into hiding until she was finally stopped. But none of that matters at the moment. Right now, you need my help."

"I don't need -"

Cardinal's eyes narrowed and she let out a grumpy 'hpmh'. "You needed my help to stop from dying," she pointed out. I pressed my hand to my side. "Kirito tried his best but your injuries were too severe. All he was able to do was stabilize your Life. You're lucky that your friend was able to pierce Quinella with the special dagger I'd created while Alice distracted her."

I stared at Cardinal. I had the _strangest_ urge to pat her on the head. Maybe it was the earlier blood loss.

She adjusted her glasses. "But that wasn't what I meant. You need my help to restore your memories to their rightful state."

I controlled the immediate urge to jump at her offer. My tongue still darted out and licked my lips, though. "...What do you want from me?"

"Hmm?" Cardinal blinked up at me. With the pigtails, she looked pretty cute like that. "What are you talking about? Want? There's nothing I want."

The purple-haired girl sighed. "Rythin, she just wants to help, that's all." I looked back and forth at them. I didn't know them at all, and that made no sense... "I'll just go get Kirito, since you're awake now." She shook her head and headed off. She knew Kirito?

I was so very confused. Cardinal smiled up at me. "Don't worry," she said. "I've already restored Alice's memories. The process is very simple. Although, since you're from the other realm..." Other what?!

"The Highest Order Bi... No. Quinella said the same thing," I said. "What does that mean?"

"You'll remember once your memories are back," Cardinal said. "I promise."

"Mm."

It didn't really make me feel better, but there wasn't time to say anything else. The purple-haired girl returned with Kirito following her. "Hey..." he said awkwardly when I looked at him. "I'm glad you're okay, Rythin. Ritsu was really worried about you."

"And you found your friend, Kirito!" the newly-named Ritsu said. "Congratulations."

"Kirito," I began, and then stopped. What was I going to say? 'Thank you for showing me how much Quinella had been messing with my mind, sorry for trying to murder you?' 'My ribs feel better, how are yours?' 'So Quinella was kind of a bitch, huh?'

The boy grinned at me. "Turned out that thanks to you cutting off her hand, Administrator wasn't able to fight back as effectively," he said. "Alice distracted her just long enough for Eugeo to wake up, and then Ritsu threw his dagger and got her. She's got really good aim." He scratched his cheek. "So... thanks, I guess."

I sighed. "I'm not sure I did much but..." I shook my head. "Putting that aside. The mini-librarian here says she can bring my memories back."

"Excuse me!" Cardinal pouted. Well, she probably intended for it to be a stern frown, but it looked like a pout.

"Can she?" I asked Kirito. "And is it safe?"

"Yes," he said immediately. "And absolutely." He glanced back over at the golden girl, who waved at him cheerfully. "Alice is... well, according to Eugeo, she's back to her old self."

I nodded once, and then looked at Cardinal. "Well, let's be about it then," I said.

"Umu." Cardinal nodded as well. She gestured at the ruined bed with her staff. "Go lie down. It'll be faster if you're unconscious, and I don't want to waste time."

Hmmmmm. This really wasn't putting me at ease. But, then again, I'd been unconscious earlier and nothing had happened, so... I guess I'll listen to Cardinal for now. I walked over to the bed and sat down. It really was exactly as comfortable as I thought it was.

"Thank you," Cardinal said. "Now... System call." She struck her staff against the ground and the rings on the end rang out. I let my eyes close as she chanted a complex Sacred Art. I was really just so _tired_ of everything...

* * *

I opened my eyes.

And then immediately regretted it. "Ugh... Can someone get the license plate of the dragon that ran me over?" I growled. "Gods, everything hurts." I pushed myself up and rubbed at my head. Headache, check; ache in the side, check; arms and legs and everything else ache, check.

I rubbed at my eyes and looked around. Everything was exactly the same as I'd seen it when I closed my eyes. But now... now I remembered _everything_. Including Kazuto, Ritsu, and everything. "...Hey, Kazuto," I said. "Good to see you again."

My brother let out a huge sigh of relief and he smiled at me. "Hey, Nick," he said. "You worried us for a little bit."

"Yeah, I know. Sorry about that." I spotted Ritsu hovering just over Kirito's shoulder and smiled at the girl. "Hiya, Ritsu. It's been a while, huh... I should have come back earlier."

She shook her head and wiped at her eyes. "I-it's fine. I'm not..." After a few seconds she gave up on words and lunged forward. She wrapped her arms around my waist and buried her face in my chest; I blinked for a second at Kirito's grin, then patted her back. "I'm so glad you're back to normal, Rythin," she mumbled. "I missed you so much."

"I left you alone for a while, didn't I?" I asked. "I'm really, really sorry, Ritsu. I screwed up." She sniffed into my chest but didn't reply or deny the charge. After all, it was true. "How did you get wrapped up in all of this, anyway? This isn't the type of place for an assassin."

"I waited and waited, but you never came back," she mumbled. "So I went to Centoria. One thing led to another, and... um..."

"She was in one of the cells when Eugeo and I broke out," Kirito said. "She recognized me and called out, so we broke her out too." He chuckled. "You really talked about us a lot back in... E Class, right?"

I nodded. "Well, who else would I talk about? I missed you all."

Kirito grinned and drifted off to talk with Alice and... Eugeo, apparently? The blond kid that Quinella had been about to make her next Integrity Knight. Meanwhile, I fidgeted awkwardly while Ritsu sat and clung to me. She didn't move for the longest time, so I didn't really have a choice but to let her cling to me. Though, to be honest, it was nice to get a hug again. My memories as an Integrity Knight remained, and the entire time I'd been alone there.

Speaking of being an Integrity Knight... I gently poked at Ritsu's side until she sat back and let me stand up. I had something I needed to do.

Alice was laughing with Eugeo and Kirito like a trio of old friends when I approached them. My bare feet were quiet on the cold floor, but Eugeo still saw me approach them. "Oh, um... hi," he said. "You're... Rythin, right? Kirito's best friend." He smiled at me. "I guess it's nice to finally meet you! He told me a lot of stories while we were traveling through the Northern Empire."

I raised an eyebrow and smirked at Kirito. "Oh, he did? Good to know. Hopefully nothing too embarrassing," I said with a chuckle.

"Um..." Eugeo scratched his cheek. Maybe he picked the habit up from Kirito. "W-Well, he said you, um... w-wore a dress before."

I sighed in relief. "Great, so nothing embarrassing. If crossdressing was the worst thing he said about me, I got lucky." Eugeo blushed a little bit and I snickered. "But... It's nice to meet you as well, Eugeo. If you don't mind though, I wanted to talk to Alice for a second...?"

"Yes, of course!" Wow. This boy was entirely too nice. A veritable cinnamon roll. I'd talked to him for all of a minute and I could already tell. "Come on, Kirito, let's leave them to their conversation."

"Yeah, yeah, coming, coming. ...I wonder if we have time to run down to the kitchen and grab something? Those meat buns were good but I'm still hungry."

"Honestly, do you ever think of anything but food?"

I grinned. Yeah, okay, Eugeo's gotten to know Kirito pretty well, hasn't he?

"A dress, hmm?"

Alice's voice made me turn to look at her. I could still see the proud and stern Knight that I'd come to know, but the playful sparkle in her eye was anything but. "Yeah," I said with a shrug. "Why? Is that a problem?"

"No, not really," she said. "It was just hard to match that mental image with the Integrity Knight I knew for the last year." I winced. Yeah, okay, that was a good point.

"About that..." I took a deep breath. Let's go, Rythin, you need to say this. "I apologize, Alice."

"...Pardon me?"

"I apologize for my rude and thoughtless behavior." I could make plenty of excuses about how I wasn't in my right state of mind, or how Quinella had been controlling me, but the simple fact was, Integrity Knight Rythin Synthesis Thirty-One was a part of me. A cruel part untempered by my experiences in E Class and without my lovely girlfriend and my family, yes, but it was still me. "For the past year or so, I've been cruel. Please, forgive me."

"I..." Alice hesitated, and then sighed. "I understand your words, Rythin. I will do my best to look past your previous actions." She smiled. "After all, you're Kirito's friend."

What did that - oh. Of course. Those pheromones of his! I glanced over to where he was talking with Eugeo and Ritsu. I need to protect my classmate from his pretty-boy harem aura! Alice is lost but I can still save Ritsu! Don't fall for that dense idiot, Ritsu! "I suppose that's the best I could ask for," I sighed. "Honestly, I'm a little surprised you managed to even try."

Alice shook her head. "I'm not... unfamiliar with the situation you were in, so I can empathize somewhat."

"...You remembered your past life, right?" I asked her.

"I did." A soft smile graced her appearance. "I'm looking forward to visiting with my childhood friends once things in the Central Cathedral settle down."

I smiled. "Great. I hope it's a nice place."

Sure the conversation was awkward, but it was a good starting point. Even if I'd never see Alice again once I logged out of Underworld, it felt good to apologize to her.

...Wait, did she say 'friends'? As in, plural? But the only one here from Underworld was Eugeo, so she must have misspoken. Unless... Of course. Ha ha ha! Of course Kirito managed to make childhood friends with a cute girl! They must have erased knowledge of him from everyone's memories when he left, but if Alice's memories had been locked away, they wouldn't have been affected!

Seriously, that boy. It's ridiculous, really.

...

"So, where do we go from here?" I asked Kirito and Cardinal.

The little librarian let out a quiet hmph. "Now, I have to take care of you two." She strode over to the edge of the chamber and struck her staff against the floor. A circle under the staff glowed and rose up from the ground; on top of the small pedestal was a small...

"That's a terminal," I breathed. The small white marble shape looked like it was a laptop sitting on there, albeit without a keyboard or a screen.

"Umu. Quinella's plan was most likely to upload herself to the human world in the event that the Load Test Stage arrived. She always was a coward." I glanced at Kirito during Cardinal's mini-rant, and he gave me a look that said 'I'll explain later'. I nodded and turned back to Cardinal as she started typing at the terminal. Purple screens the same color as the Stacia window appeared and lines of text swiftly crawled up the screen. "Hmm... Yes, I can open a communication channel between here and the real world. It will allow you two - three, pardon me," she added with a glance over at Ritsu. I looked over my shoulder at her and saw the AI girl chatting happily with Alice and Eugeo. "To leave before I return this world to nothingness."

Nothingness? "You still want to do that?" Kirito asked her. "The people here are alive! If we can let them live a happy life, then -"

"Hang on, both of you," I said. "I'm gonna need that explanation now. Return to nothingness? _What_?"

After the explanation, I sighed heavily and took a seat on the terminal pedestal. "So, you want to delete everything and reset things back to null, as punishment to RATH for making this world? Just making sure I have this pretty clear in my head."

"That is correct," Cardinal said.

"And, as an incentive to get him to do what you wanted, you told Kirito you could archive ten or so Fluctlights instead of deleting them. Still right?"

"Umu."

I sighed again and buried my face in my hands. "Okay. Okay, I think I've got it. So, first thing, your plan isn't going to work. Not permanently, at any rate."

"...Explain," Cardinal said.

I shrugged. "They've got backups. Where do you think Ritsu came from? She's not from the human world, but here she is. A separate system for a different test. Even if you erase this world, there's only a few outcomes I can see." I raised my hand and ticked them off one at a time. "One, you successfully erase all the Fluctlights. The engineers at RATH swear and start over. Two, you successfully erase all the Fluctlights. The RATH engineers sigh and move on to the next idea using Fluctlights. And three, you fail to erase all the Fluctlights and things continue."

"Besides. If you erase the world, I can't grant your desire again," Kirito said. Cardinal grumbled under her breath and glared at him.

I blinked rapidly. "Pardon?" I asked. "I must have misunderstood that. One, I'm pretty sure that's illegal? Wait, she said over two hundred years ago… does that make her a – never mind. Besides the point. Number two, you'd better have Asuna's permission, otherwise I'm going to have to hurt you."

"N-No no no!" Kirito waved his hands wildly. "Just a hug, a hug! That was it!"

"Oh." I stared at the now blushing Cardinal. "Huh. I would have pegged her for the piggyback ride, honestly -"

"I am not a child," Cardinal grumbled.

"Heh." I shrugged. "But seriously. I don't think that whatever your problem is, wiping the slate clean is a good answer. There's probably some better way rather than scrapping everything."

Kirito grinned, and Cardinal sighed. "Geez," she said. "What unreasonably optimistic people you two are." Eh? Optimistic? Me? _That's_ a new one. "But... Maybe you're right," she said. "If the only response would be to restart the project..."

I cracked my neck. "How about once we're out of here, Kirito and I talk to the asshole in charge? The head rear-end, if you will." Kikuoka is going to owe me big time for what I did, even if it was entirely on accident. "I'm sure that we can get something done."

"Your crude comments aside," Cardinal sniffed, "that sounds like... an acceptable agreement. For now, let me open the communication channels." She typed rapidly at the terminal.

Eventually, a purple screen popped up with an icon on it, an arrow pointing towards a silhouette. "External Observer call", I read out loud. "What, so, Kikuoka?" I smirked. "I have some words for him, so that's good."

Cardinal headed back to the girls and Eugeo. Once we were alone, Kirito and I nodded, and then he pressed the button. "Performing this operation will set the Fluctlight Acceleration rate to 1.0," he read from the prompt. "Are you sure?"

"Well we can't call unless we do," I shrugged.

He nodded and tapped the Confirm button. A red panel popped up that said Processing, and -

The world twisted around itself and I had the weirdest experience of my body somehow slowing down to a crawl; my thoughts and movements were in slow motion while sound and light and everything else stretched out before snapping right back. I shivered violently and rolled my shoulders.

The panel was now totally black, with a single line that read [Sound Only]. I frowned. Stupid thing couldn't even give me video? "Helloooo~?" I sang out. "Anyone home?"

"Kikuoka, are you there?" Kirito called out.

The only thing that answered us was silence. "Okay, wow, rude, just answering the phone without anyone there," I grumped. "See if I answer _your_ next phone ca-"

The mechanical chatter of gunfire replied to my whining. Immediately my eyes widened and I shut up. The speed of the retorts... Automatic weaponry. "What's going on?" Kirito gasped.

"Ritsu!" I snapped. "You're needed!"

"Coming!" My classmate hurried over as more semi-auto fire echoed out across the channel. Bright orange soundwaves spiked every time. "Gunfire? What's this? Does it have anything to do with the oddity I just sensed?"

"No idea," I murmured.

"Lieutenant Colonel! The door's been breached! We have to leave!" An unfamiliar man's voice came across the line. "They'll be in the control room any second! I'm shutting the bulkhead!"

"No, wait!" That one was undeniably Kikuoka. "Just give me a couple minutes! I have to sort a few things out here." More gunfire. This sounded different. Probably two sets of guns, attackers and defenders. And from the sound of it, Kikuoka's team was on the defensive. "Higa. How long until we're locked down?"

"I need another eighty... no! Seventy seconds." I recognized that voice too. It was one of the techs that worked on Underworld. Higa. He was older than me and more skilled at programming, though I was catching up fast. "Wha- Holy crap! Hey Kiks!"

...Kiks?

"It's a call from the Underworld! It's... Dude! It's them! It's Kirigaya and Weyr!"

"Wha- really?" Kikuoka gasped. "Kirito! Rythin!"

Kirito sucked in a quick breath, but I didn't waste any time getting angry. "Sitrep now. What the _hell_ is going on out there?" Kirito opened his mouth but I pressed a hand on his shoulder. He was pissed at Kikuoka for any number of excellent reasons, but that didn't matter.

"An enemy force has invaded RATH. I don't know what they're after, but it's probably the Fluctlights." More gunfire echoed through the channel, machinegun followed by the sharp retort of what sounded like...

"Handgun, or semi-auto?" I asked Ritsu.

She tilted her head and listened, then held up a single finger. "Definitely handgun, though multiple weapons."

"Probably security then," I shrugged.

"Listen! I need you two find a girl for me. Her name is Alice, and -"

"We have the girl," I interrupted. "Ritsu, go make sure she stays in place, we'll need Alice." The girl nodded and headed off to grab the blonde. "What next?"

"You have her? That's incredible. How did you find her? Wait, never mind."

"You've gotta be kidding," Higa breathed. "Those kids are awesome!" Damn straight we are.

"Alright, once we're off the line, I'll crank the FLA to a thousand," Kikuoka said. "Then, take Alice and head to the World's End Altar."

I shook my head. "We need more information than that. No idea what or where it is." It's probably the logout point for the Fluctlights, if I had to guess.

"That's okay," Kikuoka told me. "Just go out the Eastern gate and the altar's due south."

"Sir! Two of them are heading down the corridor, heading towards electric!"

The security guard's voice made me wish I'd memorized the layout of RATH better, if only to know where hostile forces were. Unfortunately, that had been two years ago, and before I'd really gotten in the habit of memorizing floor plans. "What?" Kikuoka ground out.

"We're screwed!" Higa complained. "What do we do? If they cut the main powerline now, it's gonna cause a surge! The Lightcube Cluster should be safe, but... the subcomputers where Kirigaya and Weyr's STLs are won't be! The surge will cook their Fluctlights!"

"Oh fuck," I said succinctly.

"Okay, I'll handle the lockdown. Higa, take Doctor Koujiro, Asuna, and Kana, and get to the upper shaft! Keep Kirito and Rythin safe!"

My fist smashed down on the pedestal next to the terminal. "The girls aren't safe yet?" I snarled. "What the _hells_ have you idiots been DOING?!"

"What are they doing at RATH!?" Kirito gasped.

"They're cutting the power!" one of the guards shouted. "The screw propellers are going down!"

I gasped and turned to look at Ritsu, reaching out a hand. I could see Alice and Eugeo turning to look at us from the other side of the room; they were too far away to have heard anything from the human world, but the commotion and my shouting probably attracted their attention.

Suddenly, the entire room lit up in an eerie blue light. Beside me, Kirito staggered backwards. Pillars of light lanced down from above, stabbing through the top of the cathedral. Where they smashed through my body, they didn't hurt or have an impact or anything at all... But still, something in me recoiled from them. I'd been grievously wounded, an animal part of me was certain. Red and purple squares appeared in my vision as the world shuddered.

My soul shuddered too, pieces of it breaking apart and falling away. The thing that made me _me_ was shredded by the light.

My vision faded to whiteness that seemed to have nothing in it.

Of course, even the idea of hollow whiteness stopped having meaning.

From a distant source, I could hear someone shouting. "Rythin... Nick!"

'I don't want to forget her again, please,' one part of my mind begged.

But... forget...

...Who, exactly?

* * *

**Administrator fiiiiiight! And then... bad things. Good things? Definitely bad things in the end.**

**With this, we've finished off all of the first Season of Alicization. This is, in the end, fanfic; and Rythin's journey here especially is separate from Kirito. I'm assuming most of my readers know the plot of Alicization by now (since, y'know, it's been animated) but if you don't, I'd heavily suggest watching at LEAST the recap of cour 1 that aired before cour 2 officially started. I think it's subs only, though. Moving forward, there might be a little bit of explanation about what went down when Nick wasn't looking, but don't expect a full recap or anything.**

**Other than that... how did Ritsu get there? She did a crime and killed something, duh. Same thing that got Nick arrested, because she knew it would work! She'd managed to make it to Centoria but knew she wouldn't be able to win a sword fight and become a Trainee, so she deliberately broke the Taboo Index. Did she know Rythin was still alive? No, but we'll get to that next chapter, don't worry.**

**Many thanks for everyone that favorited, followed, and reviewed.**


	7. E Class in the Log Cabin

**Chapter 7: E Class in the Log Cabin**

* * *

**October 21, 380 HE**

When I was in E Class, I didn't get to experience a lot of the same things my classmates went through. Training their muscles, training their abilities, taking tests and studying... I wanted to do things like that too! So I made sure my virtual world had weather and cute outfits and things like that. It helped me have fun experiences like when I went to the movie theater with everyone, and the beach, and all kinds of other things.

Of course I didn't mimic _everything_. I didn't need to worry about physical training when I was in my computer! The virtual world was my playground so all I needed to do was crunch numbers and try my best to kill Korosensei.

It made sense that I'd never helped out with the culture festival. I couldn't gather ingredients or serve the orders, so all I could do was help the others with timing and take orders from people at the base of the mountain.

"Hup!" With a quick exhale, I tugged and the turnip popped out of the ground.

Collecting ingredients by hand really was a lot of fun! I wish I could do it with everyone in E Class. No matter how many times I harvest the root vegetables I planted, it always brings a sense of satisfaction and success with it. My garden... Something I'd made by hand and tended to myself. The clearing in the woods was peaceful as it always was, with birds chirping in the trees all around me. The leaves were just starting to change color, too, so the green was mixed with yellow and red that painted a really lovely picture.

My garden itself was something I'd worked hard at, and it showed. I might not have the same experiences planting and growing things as the rest of E Class, but I think it came out well enough. The four rows of root vegetables - potatoes, carrots, turnips, and onions - were neatly arranged in a row that I checked each morning. A little closer to my house were some leafy greens growing around a trellis with tomatoes climbing up the wooden sticks. Those weren't ripe yet, so they had to stay a little longer. The red color meant they were almost ready, and I could probably start having tomatoes in my dishes before too much longer.

I stood up and wiped at my brow as I placed the turnip in the basket with the others. Four large turnips and two carrots... That was enough for tonight's dinner, I think. All that was left was to get some meat for the stew and all my chores for the morning would be done. I let out a quiet sigh; even though it was a lot of fun, it was still a lot of work.

"Good morning, Miss Ritsu."

The calm, steady voice broke the birdsong and I turned to see Alice walking up the dirt path towards me. I smiled and waved at her. "Good morning, Alice," I said. "You're right on time!"

The golden knight - or, well, I guess villager now that she'd swapped out her armor for a brown cloak and white shawl - smiled back. "Did you sleep well?" she asked.

"Mm hmm!" I nodded. "And I see Selka's here too, hello!"

"Hi, Miss Ritsu," Selka said. She was wearing her usual black outfit that showed she was a trainee of the church. I remember the girls from Veshire wearing something very similar. "Good morning!" To me, it was clear the two girls were siblings; Selka's hair wasn't _quite_ Alice's golden blonde, but it was close enough and they both wore their hair in very similar braided styles. The only difference was that Alice had a few extra years to grow it out.

Come to think of it, I had my hair in twintails like always! It was just as long as theirs was. Hee hee! Talk about coincidences. I'd played around with a few different styles and lengths as I expanded my capabilities after graduating, but there was something soothing about having my old style back.

"Your sister is always so adorable," I told Alice.

The blonde nodded. "I know, right? I'm always so proud of her," Alice said. "Did you know she's learning Sacred Arts, just like I used to before going to Centoria?"

"Oh, that's amazing! I didn't know. How far is she in her studies?"

Alice practically beamed with pride. "She's learned all the Sacred Arts I've been able to teach her," she said with the air of a teacher talking about her prized pupil. "Soon, she'll have completed her Calling. Isn't that wonderful?"

"Aliiiice! Stooooop!" Selka complained, burying her face in her big sister's side.

"Pfffuh..." I couldn't help it. "Pffhahahaha!"

"It's not funny!" Selka wailed. "You're embarrassing meeee!"

My laughter didn't stop. They're just so cute! I was really glad they got to be together again. Eventually, my giggling tapered off and I took a slow breath to make sure I was calmed down enough. "Hee hee... So, what are you doing here, Selka?"

"Alice said she was coming to visit, and I wanted to come along," Selka said. "It's such a nice day, so I thought we could go on a walk to the eastern hill. When I mentioned it to Alice at breakfast, she said it sounded like a good idea. And Kirito suggested that Rythin might want to come along to. He can, right?"

She smiled at me, and I turned to my house. A simple log cabin, with a stone chimney. It really wasn't much, and if I was going to be honest with myself it was drafty at times. But, well... It was a lot like E Class, and that made it the perfect place for me.

After a few seconds, I smiled. "It's a lovely day out," I said. "And spending the day inside on a day like this isn't good for anyone." That's one of Korosensei's '108 Rules to Live By' in the PDF he uploaded to my servers. "How about it? Let's go... Rythin."

Of course, just because I'd decided to go on a walk with the Zuberg sisters didn't mean I could just walk away then and there. I had to put away the vegetables or their Life would start dropping quickly. So, I picked up my basket and headed inside. Alice and Selka followed me through the front door.

"Ritsu, where do you want me to put this?" Alice held up the basket she was carrying. "I brought some fruit as well as the meat."

"Ah! That's great. Thank you so much, they'll be wonderful to go with our breakfast. Put them in the fridge, please."

Alice nodded and headed over to the side of the cabin I used as a kitchen where my fridge was. I called it a fridge, but it really was just a sealed box with ice sitting inside. Each morning as part of my Sacred Art practice I would generate new cryogenic elements and put them inside. It helped keep the meat's Life from dropping, since she only delivered more food once a week.

"Selka, would you do me a favor and wash the vegetables while I go get Rythin?" I asked her. "I don't want to put them away dirty, but I can't leave them out."

"Sure thing," the younger girl said. "I'll do that right away." What a helpful girl! I almost wish I had a little sister like her...

I smiled and turned to the rest of the room. A few farming implements hung on the walls by the door - an axe and a hand scythe - along with some herbs drying on the walls. The simple table and tablecloth with two chairs were in the center of the house, and by the wall there was a wooden dresser by the wall where I kept my plates and bowls, and a little metal stove right next to it. The fire was lit and crackling merrily; after all, it was October and the days were starting to get chilly. I didn't want Rythin to catch a cold.

I knelt down by the wheelchair sitting in front of the fireplace. "Alice and Selka came to visit," I said. "They invited us on a walk because it's so nice out. Isn't that nice, Rythin?"

The boy sitting in the wheelchair didn't move or reply. His eyes stared ahead, and there was no light of life in his eyes. It was like... the images of myself before Korosensei's upgrades had increased my computing power and display capabilities.

Oh, Rythin... My heart hurt at the sight of him like this, but the pain was sadly familiar. So, I stood up and went to fetch a coat and scarf for him. Like every morning, I'd made sure to dress him in his red tunic, pants and boots that we'd been given, but if we were going out, I wanted to make sure he stayed warm. "I know you'd just say you're fine," I told Rythin as I wrapped the scarf around his neck loosely, "but wear it for me, okay? Now then, Alice and Selka are waiting for us, so we shouldn't keep them any longer."

I started to move the wheelchair around, but a plaintive noise escaped. "Mmmh... mhhhh..." I stopped and looked at Rythin as he slowly reached his hand out.

"Oh... I'm so sorry. I'll get it right away." I went to the wall and picked up the weapon that was displayed there, and placed the dagger in his lap. His fingers wrapped around the hilt and the sheath in a protective clutch, and I smiled. "Hold onto it tightly, okay?" Rythin settled down and resumed staring ahead blankly with his dull eyes.

The path Alice, Selka, Rythin and I wandered down was closer to a game trail than anything else, and the wheels of Rythin's wheelchair bumped on the uneven ground. It wasn't the first time that we'd taken this walk, however, and as long as I took it slowly he'd be safe. "Where is Kirito?" I asked.

Selka turned and smiled. "Kirito is waiting at the eastern hill already."

I nodded. Kirito lived in Eugeo's old house, just on the edge of town. It was usually easier for him to go there and meet us when we arrived, since Rythin and I lived so far away, and Alice and Selka had come to visit me.

A few leaves fell from the tree above as a light breeze rustled the wind, and the trees started to part. They revealed the bright blue sky, with a few fluffy white clouds. It really was a nice day to take a walk. The path wound around a lake sparkling in the sunlight, and standing at the edge of the road was a boy with black hair dressed in a blue tunic. A long black sword hung on his hip.

Kirito turned around and smiled. "Hey girls," he said with a wave.

"Hi, Kirito. Good morning," I said.

"Morning," he said. His eyes fell to Rythin, and I noticed the tiny slump of his shoulders. "Hey, Rythin. Good to see you, too."

For a little bit longer, nobody said anything and we all just took in the sights. The lake really was lovely, and I could see a few birds floating around on the lake's surface. While I watched, one of the birds flapped its wings and rose from the surface of the lake. It flew away, and I heard Alice murmur, "It's beautiful. Way more than anything painted on the Cathedral's walls." She sighed. "And I forgot about all of it."

"Don't beat yourself up about it," Kirito told her. "Remember, you were so strong that they had to force you to forget everything. It's not like it's your fault."

Alice stared out at the landscape for a while, not saying anything, and her eye seemed a little sad. "You're right," she said. "It's not like me to let this affect me so. After all, this is the world you saved, Kirito."

"I guess," he said. "But it's not like I did it alone. I had you and Eugeo, and Ritsu and Rythin to help."

"Yes..."

* * *

_**May 20th, 380 HE**_

"We're screwed!" the man on the terminal complained. "What do... ...the main powerline now, it's... ...surge! ...Kirigaya and Weyr's STLs are won't be! The surge... Fluctlights!"

I could barely hear the other half of the conversation. The call quality was poor and it wasn't like the internet, where I could do some audio mixing to hear things properly. Even from halfway across the room, I was only catching bits and pieces. But, I could still hear when Rythin swore loudly. "Oh fuck," he snapped.

"Okay, I'll..." A different voice, though one I could barely make out. "...And get to the... shaft! Keep ... Rythin safe!"

"What is happening?" Alice asked me. Beside her, Eugeo looked at Kirito with worry clear on his face.

"It is uncertain," Miss Cardinal replied.

Rythin's fist smashed down on the pedestal next to the terminal. "They aren't safe yet?" he snarled. "What the _hells_ have you idiots been **DOING**?!"

"What are they doing at RATH!?" Kirito gasped.

Wait, what-?

"...Power! The screw... are going down!"

Rythin turned to look at me, stretching out a hand. Beside me, Alice and Eugeo turned their attention back to the boys from Miss Cardinal.

Suddenly, the entire room lit up in an eerie blue light. Both Kirito and Rythin were caught in a quake and knocked off of their feet. Pillars of light lanced down from above, stabbing through the top of the cathedral. One in particular smashed down through Kirito and Rythin as the two were in midair, and the sound of static filled my ears. Red and purple squares surrounded both boys and I couldn't help but gasp. It looked like some sort of corrupted video feed all of a sudden!

The light died away and with it went the artifacting. I didn't pay any attention to that at all, however, because Kirito and Rythin landed heavily on the floor. "Rythin!" I shouted as I rushed towards them. "Rythin, are you okay?"

My best friend didn't reply. His eyes were closed and his head lolled to the side when I touched his shoulder. I didn't panic, though, and I let out a sigh of relief when I found his pulse.

"Kirito!" Alice and Eugeo yelled. They rushed to the black-haired boy's side. "Kirito!" Unlike Rythin, Kirito stirred and groaned quietly under their fussing.

"Ow... my head..." Kirito groaned. "What happened...?"

"I don't know!" Alice said. "You were talking to someone on the pedestal, then that strange light shone down from the heavens."

"Are you okay?" Eugeo asked him. "Your Life hasn't gone down, but... that looked like it hurt."

Kirito pushed himself up to a sitting position. "Yeah, my head hurts, but nothing's broken. Just... I can't remember anything. The last thing I remember is Cardinal pulling up the terminal. Is - Rythin!"

I shook my head. "He won't wake up..."

"What's going on?" Kirito stood up - and wobbled in place as soon as he got to his feet. Alice and Eugeo both steadied him, one on each side, and he gave both of them a grateful smile. "Kikuoka... He'll know."

The terminal in front of us was still up, and he staggered over to it. When he tapped at the keys, though, the screen I'd seen before didn't appear again. "What's going on, Kirito?" Eugeo asked.

"It's not appearing..." Kirito muttered. "Why isn't it showing up? Cardinal?"

"The connection." The little librarian shook her head, stoic as ever, but her voice held a note of regret. "The connection to the real world has been severed. Until it is restored, it will be impossible to call whoever you were speaking to."

Kirito frowned. "Who I was... It has to be Kikuoka, but why can't I..."

"Was it that strange light that destroyed the connection?" I asked. "That would..."

Before I said anything else, my senses alerted me to the presence of someone else in the room. I turned to see the man Eugeo had fought in the bath walking slowly towards us. Eugeo looked over as well and got to his feet. He drew his sword. "Bercouli..."

"Easy, kid. I'm not here to pick a fight." He stared down at where Rythin was lying motionless. "Brat..."

"Uncle," Alice said. Tears beaded in her eyes. "I'm glad you're okay. How did you free yourself from the Pontifex's Sacred Art?"

"We'll worry about that later," he said. "What happened?"

Eugeo and Kirito looked at each other. Slowly, the blond boy lowered his sword as Alice began to explain everything that had happened.

...

Eventually, Bercouli had listened and understood everything. He left to go gather the Integrity Knights that had been injured by the assault on the Central Cathedral for a meeting. In the meantime, Alice helped me carry Rythin to his room in the tower. The entire time we were moving him, he didn't stir in the slightest. He was fast asleep, and I closed the door to his room.

"Is he..."

I shook my head as Kirito trailed off. "He's still not awake. Though... he was so badly injured in the fight against Quinella, so it's possible he'll wake up after he's recovered enough."

"Umu." I jumped. Miss Cardinal had floated up to us silently, since she didn't need to walk. "My Sacred Arts can restore Life and blood, but the energy expended will not be regained."

"Thank you again, for saving his life," I said to the powerful girl.

Kirito sighed. "So, Cardinal. Are you still going to insist on erasing this world?"

"No," she said, and Kirito smiled at her. "I had a discussion with the man Alice called 'Uncle'. Bercouli, was it? He requested that I act as the new Pontifex, until the situation with the Dark Territory is resolved. And, if the result of my actions would truly be as useless as Rythin said, then... perhaps there is a better way after all."

"I'm glad," Kirito said. "But even if you hadn't, I would still have picked you, you know."

"Then you are a fool," Miss Cardinal told him. Still, she tugged her hat forward to cover her face a little better. Aww, it's like when we caught Okano blushing after Maehara praised her.

I cleared my throat. "Since it's just us," I saied, "this is a good chance to talk about... what happened, after Rythin collapsed."

Eugeo nodded. "I was really worried," he said. "When you two fell over, I thought it was one last attack from Quinella. I'm glad you're okay, Kirito. So... Miss Ritsu, what was that light?"

"The short answer is that I don't know," I sighed. "But since Miss Cardinal said the connection to the real world was cut off-"

"Real world?" Eugeo asked. "Quinella was saying something like that. How Rythin was from a different world. But I thought I was just dreaming, since it didn't make any sense. Are you saying that she wasn't lying?"

Kirito and I looked at each other, and then the black-haired boy sighed. "Eugeo... Sorry. I haven't been totally honest with you."

"Wh-what?"

"I'm not from this world," Kirito said. "It's... a little complicated to explain right now. Alice, is there somewhere we can talk about this?"

Alice nodded. "Of course. The Cloudtop Garden is only a few floors away. We can relax there while this chi... I-I mean, my sword recovers some of its Life."

The walk to the peaceful grassy hill didn't take long, since Rythin's room was fairly high up on the tower and the floor where we'd first encountered Alice was on the 80th floor. Miss Elevator Operator was kind enough to take us up there, too. Once we were settled under the shade of the olive tree that Alice's sword turned into, Kirito explained what he could about this world. "...and that's mostly it," Kirito said.

"So, you're... Diving in?" Eugeo asked.

Kirito nodded. "Yeah. Using something called the STL. Sorry for not telling you until now, Eugeo."

"N-no, I understand!" Eugeo smiled at him. "I wouldn't have believed you if you'd told me when we first met in Rulid. It makes sense, why you knew this Aincrad Style but had lost all your memories..."

"As for me," I added, "I'm from a _different_ simulation entirely. I, uh... grew up with Rythin, kind of, and I came over to help him look for Kirito. But, well, things happened and now..."

Kirito blinked. "...Grew up?"

I smiled. "We were middle school classmates," I said. Miss Cardinal, Alice, and Eugeo stared blankly at 'middle school' but Kirito nodded even if his brows were still a little furrowed.

"I understand," Alice said. "So, Kirito and Rythin are from the same world, while you are from a third one entirely?"

"Exactly," I said. "One hundred percent accurate!"

Alice nodded at me and then turned to Kirito. "So, Kirito," she said, "why am I so important?"

"Huh?"

"During the discussion you were having with the... uh, Kikuoka," Alice said, and stumbled on the foreign name, "Rythin told Ritsu that I was necessary. Do you remember why?"

Kirito shook his head. "Sorry, it's all one big blur. Cardinal? Do you know?"

Miss Cardinal looked over from where she was sitting on the hill. I noticed that she'd been plucking at the blades of grass idly, and a few were scattered on her robes. "I do not know precisely," she said. "While I may be the representation of the operating system, I don't have access to all of its knowledge. However, there are very few things that someone from the real world would require with someone from in here."

"What Kikuoka would want with Alice..." Kirito mused.

I raised a finger. "Is there something special about her?"

"Obviously," Kirito said with thinking. Alice coughed and looked away. Hmm...? Oh my~. What a charmer. "But why would Kikuoka want her, specifically? And what could she do in the real world...?" Then his eyes widened. "The real world... That's it!"

"Did you think of something, Kirito?" Eugeo asked.

Kirito nodded. "It's her Fluctlight. It has to be. That's the whole reason they made this world. But why Alice in particular?"

"It does not matter," Alice said. "If he wishes to meet with me, I will meet."

"To do that, we will need to connect to the outside world again," Miss Cardinal said. "The internal systems of this world are not damaged. So, the outside must be denying calls."

I gasped. "The attack!" When everyone looked at me, I blushed a little. "I heard gunfire over the call. They were being attacked by someone. Whatever is going on, they must have lost power or had to cut the connection for some reason."

"If they were being attacked, they'd definitely evacuate," Kirito said. "But where would they go...?"

"You know the ship the best," I told him. "Can you give me a rough layout of the key infrastructure points?"

Kirito shrugged. "There's the main control room. That's what I called earlier. Then, from there... Sorry, I don't really know much. I didn't exactly have a minimap or anything like that."

I sighed and played with one of my twintails absently. "That's a shame. But, if you said there was a main control room, there's a high chance that there are more control rooms. If there's a second room that they could evacuate into, then they might be able to..."

"Hey, there you are, kid."

Alice jumped to her feet at the sound of the gruff voice. "Uncle," she said. Bercouli stood at the entrance to the floor. "Is it time for the meeting?"

Bercouli nodded. "Sure is," he said. "Let's go."

Miss Cardinal stood up and brushed blades of grass from her robes. "Very well then."

"Oh, and kid? Bring your friends with you. They should be there too," Bercouli said over his shoulder as he turned to leave. Kirito, Eugeo and I looked at each other in surprise.

He wanted us there? But... "But Uncle," Alice protested. "They're the people who broke in to attack and kill the Pontifex! Even knowing the truth behind her intentions, Kirito and the others are..."

"It'll be fine," Bercouli said with ease. "'Sides, we've got the new Pontifex with us. Not like they can complain about that, right?"

Alice sighed. "If you say so, Commander."

"Um, excuse me..." Bercouli looked at me and gestured for me to continue. "You know the truth, about the Real World and myself, Kirito, and Rythin. But, what are we going to tell the other Integrity Knights?"

He sighed and scratched the back of his head. "What are we gonna tell 'em, huh... You know something, kid? The fact that they're from Heaven... Even if it's a lie, it's something some of those knights rely on for support. Since nobody else knows right now, they don't need to know. Let's keep it our little secret for a while, okay?"

"Understood," I said.

...

The meeting took place on the 50th Floor, where Kirito had fought against Fanatio and her four Oscillating Blades. The beautiful paintings on the ceiling were still destroyed, and the floor and pillars were all scratched up. Kirito really did a number on this place... We walked in to see all of the Knights we'd fought standing in front of Bercouli; their gleaming armor was a stark contrast to his simple yukata. The only person who wasn't here was Fanatio.

"Lady Alice, you're -" The purple-haired man that we had encountered after breaking out of prison cut himself off and reached for the whip hanging on his hip. "The traitors! What are THEY doing here?!"

"Wait, Eldrie," Alice commanded. "Listen to what the Commander has to say."

Eldrie glowered at us, his hand still on the hilt of his whip, but he didn't move from his spot. Bercouli stood between my group and the group of Integrity Knights that he'd gathered. Eldrie was there, and I recognized Deusolbert in his red armor and Fanatio's four Oscillating Blades in their identical armor. None of them had removed their helmets. Behind them were Fizel and Linel. Whew... They made it through the chaos safely.

Bercouli stood between our group and theirs, and it was probably a good thing. I looked at Kirito and he seemed carefree, but even in the short amount of time I'd spent with him I'd learned that look could mean anything.

"Before we begin," Miss Cardinal said, and struck the butt of her staff against the red carpet on the floor. A door appeared to our right, just like the one she'd appeared from in Quinella's chambers, and it creaked open. A bright light spilled into the room, and someone emerged.

"Fanatio!" one of the helmeted knights gasped.

The lady Knight had her helmet off, revealing her long black hair and beautiful face. Without a word she walked forward to stand between Deusolbert and Eldrie. "My thanks, Lady Cardinal, for saving my life," she said.

"Umu."

"Now that everyone's here, let's start," Bercouli said. "We're facing the biggest crisis in the history of the Axiom Church. The two Elite Disciples we fought... killed the Pontifex." That was a polite little fiction we'd agreed on. It was better that Kirito and Eugeo take... credit? Blame? For what happened to Quinella. After all, an assassin works best when nobody knows what happened!

"No," Fanatio gasped. "It can't be!"

"She's dead?" Eldrie asked. "Impossible..."

Bercouli didn't blink. "That's not all. Chudelkin died with the Pontifex. With him gone, there's no more Senate."

If the news of Quinella's death had shocked them, the declaration that the Senate was no more as well rocked the assembled Integrity Knight. "This makes no sense," Eldrie said. "Why would those disciples risk angering the gods with their actions? And why do they stand there, and you do not cut them down?"

"They acted to stop Quinella before she put her despicable plans into action." Miss Cardinal answered that question, not hesitating. "Her plans to turn half of the Human Realm into weapons of war. An army of mindless sword golems."

Color fled from Eldrie's face. "How could she do such a thing!? To subject the people to such horror..."

"It's diabolical," Deusolbert said.

Eldrie stepped forward once, then again. "Sir Bercouli," he said. "Why are those rogues not in chains? They must be interrogated! And Lady Alice! Why are you protecting them?"

Kirito frowned and opened his mouth to say something, but Alice held her arm out in front of him. I guess she didn't want him to interrupt. Eugeo put his hand on Kirito's shoulder, and the black-haired boy settled down. "We don't have time to deal with that right now," Bercouli replied. "The Dark Territory's been itching to invade us. And when they find out about the Pontifex, they will. No offense to Your Eminence, Lady Cardinal, but you simply do not have the reputation that Lady Administrator had cultivated. Plus, our ranks are half strong thanks to past battles with the forces of darkness. We should all be worried about that. If the Dark Territory decides to attack us now, the Human Realm will fall for sure."

"Then what should we do?" Fanatio asked. "Or rather... what _can_ we do?"

"First," Bercouli said, "we'll restore the order of the Integrity Knights. Then we'll muster the imperial knights of the four empires and train them for battle. There's strength in numbers - and right now, we need all the help we can get."

"Then please, let me help."

"Eugeo!" Kirito exclaimed.

The blond boy smiled at Kirito, then turned back to the Integrity Knights. "Please," he said. "Allow me to join the ranks of the Integrity Knights!"

"You what?" Eldrie gasped. "Insolence! A traitor like you, who turned your sword on the..." He trailed off. He must have realized what he was about to say.

"I know that I'm just an elite disciple. But I love my home," Eugeo said. "If there's anything I can do to defend Norlangarth... to defend the Human Empire! I want to do it." He clasped his shaking hands.

Bercouli studied the boy's face, then turned to Miss Cardinal. "Lady Pontifex," he said. "The choice is yours."

"...Very well," Miss Cardinal said. "I see no problems with it."

I could see Eldrie wasn't happy about the decision, but he just clenched his fist and said nothing. "Then it's settled," Bercouli said. "Good to have you, kid."

"Thank you very much!"

Bercouli turned back to the assembled Integrity Knights. "I know what I told you is hard to accept, but it's still our job to protect the people here. I can't do that without you." For the first time this meeting, Bercouli closed his eyes and bowed his head.

"Sir!" the Integrity Knights said without hesitation.

It was like when Mister Karasuma asked us to help save Korosensei. Of course we'd agree immediately! Even running emotion emulation software, I didn't really understand a lot of emotions. Happiness and l- happiness and a few others, of course, but I was certain that I'd finally felt pride. I could see that same pride across all of their faces.

With the meeting over, the Integrity Knights broke apart and moved decisively, with two exceptions. Linel and Fizel looked around and talked to each other quietly, confusion on their face, and Alice sighed. "I'll go talk to them," she said. "I might not have approved of his training methods, but those two held a fondness for Rythin. They'll want to know he was injured."

She walked over to them. As for the others, Kirito and Eugeo were talking to each other about something - probably food, knowing Kirito - and I noticed that Miss Cardinal had turned around to leave and was floating towards the exit. "Ah! Miss Cardinal," I said. The librarian turned to me. "If it's okay, I had some questions about Sacred Arts that you might be able to answer."

"What questions?"

"Well, I had some ideas of things I'd like to try. First, how can you fly like that?"

...

Later that evening, Miss Cardinal called me and the other three up to the top of the Central Cathedral. It was eerie walking through the empty hall of what had been the Senators, and I shivered at the silence that made my footsteps echo.

"Good, you're all here," Miss Cardinal said when Kirito and Eugeo entered. Kirito was eating something that smelled pretty good. "If Ritsu is correct in her guess that the users in the real world will be entering a second control room, I will be able to assist you. With this console, I should be able to eject target Fluctlights from the Lightcube Cluster. Yours, to be precise, Alice."

"My... Fluctlight..."

Miss Cardinal turned to Kirito. "I can log you out as well, Kirito."

Kirito nodded. "That's great! I can go talk to Kikuoka directly... and give him a piece of my mind. What was he thinking, trying to use souls as weapons...?"

"Kirito?" Eugeo reached out and rested a hand on his friend's shoulder. Kirito twitched, then grinned at his friend.

"Lady Cardinal," Alice said. "I'm... Thank you for the offer, but... I want to stay here. My duty is to the Human Empire, regardless of Quinella's twisted intentions. How could I leave my sister, Selka? This role I have to play as Alice Synthesis Thirty may have been my punishment, but it's still my duty. I could... could never abandon my people."

Kirito grinned. "How honorable. Just like a fairy tale knight."

"Quiet, you," Alice snapped without heat in her voice. "You enjoyed those stories as much as I did."

It had been really interesting to learn that she had been Kirito's childhood friend, but he didn't remember any of it until the beam of light struck! He'd grumbled about Mr. Kikuoka for a little bit, but I could tell he was happy to have his memories of spending his childhood with Eugeo and Alice. It had been a little sad to realize Eugeo blamed himself for Alice breaking the Taboo Index because Kirito hadn't been there, but everything was all right now!

"But still..." Her voice softened a little bit. "You are correct. Yes, it's my honor as a Knight that prevents me from leaving the people of this land when they'll need me the most."

Kirito sighed. "Yeah, I kinda get what you mean. I get it. Ritsu, you don't want to leave, right?"

"Me?" I blinked and pointed at myself to confirm that yes, I was the one he was talking about. "No, sorry. I want to stay and watch over Rythin. I know he'd do the same if our places were swapped." He's precious to me, after all. I couldn't just go leave him alone when he's in trouble. "And besides, my Fluctlight wouldn't be very helpful, I think," I said. "If it was, Mr. Kikuoka wouldn't have let me jump in here with Rythin."

"You really don't have to be so formal with that guy," Kirito groaned. But, it just felt _weird_ to not be polite to an agent, after Mr. Karasuma was so kind and thoughtful. Surely, Mr. Kikuoka would be just as nice, despite all the mean things Kirito was saying about him! "But I get your point. I guess that means I'm up, huh?"

Eugeo nodded. "Don't worry about a thing, Kirito," he said. "I'll train my hardest so that when you get back, I'll be a great Knight."

Kirito grinned and raised his hand. The blond boy smiled back and raised his own hand, and I felt a sudden surge of intensity from both of them. Then the two of them smacked their hands together in an elaborate routine that involved high-fives, fist bumps, and then strangely enough a part at the end where they pointed their fingers up in the sky. "Boys," Alice sighed quietly with a fond expression, then raised her voice. "Did you two practice that handshake?"

"N-No," Kirito protested. "...maybe." Pfft. Dork.

Miss Cardinal cleared her throat. "If you're ready, Kirito, then I'll begin the transfer."

Kirito nodded and walked over to the small librarian. "Take care of Rythin for me, okay, Ritsu?"

"Of course. You can count on me."

"Okay... Whenever you're ready, Cardinal." Kirito grinned at us. "Stay cool, you guys."

"Stay cool," Eugeo replied. I guess it was some sort of saying they had for each other, because Alice looked just as lost as I felt.

Kirito waited for Miss Cardinal to log him out, but the little librarian kept tapping at the terminal. Her forehead wrinkled in concentration, and we all rocked back and forth awkwardly. The silence stretched on longer than it really should have, and I cleared my throat. "Um... Miss Cardinal? Sorry, but is something wrong?"

"...Umu. I'm unable to execute the commands necessary. I'm afraid... you can't log out, Kirito."

"Gah...!" Kirito twisted to look at her. "Wait, seriously?" His hand trembled, and then he clenched his fist tight. "Hey, it's no problem at all. It's not your fault. But man... That's kinda embarrassing, huh?"

"I-It's okay!" Eugeo said. "You're still cool, Kirito."

He couldn't log out? That's strange, considering that he was using a government-created machine. But, maybe these systems were poorly programmed, or - actually, that makes sense. He's using a government-created machine, so thinking about it again I'm surprised things have been working as well as they are! I've only seen two errors so far!

...

**June 9th, 380 HE**

My daily lessons with Miss Cardinal were over and I stretched as I walked down the hall of the Central Cathedral's lower floors. I was really learning a lot! There are always new things to learn, and Miss Cardinal knew so much about everything.

"Ah, Ritsu. Hey!" I blinked and realized that Alice was walking towards me down one of the side corridors. That one came from the... Oh! It came from the landing floor. Her smile was bright and happy, and I waved hello.

"Hi, Alice. Did you just get back?"

"Yup. Amayori's pretty tired, we were flying the whole way. It's almost lunch time, right? Do you think Kirito already ate?"

She fell in beside me as we walked towards the main staircase. "I don't think so," I said. "Rythin hasn't eaten yet. So, Kirito's probably napping somewhere."

"That sounds like him," Alice nodded. "You had your training this morning, right? How much progress have you made?"

"Oh!" I love talking about this! "Well, thanks to the Sacred Arts that Miss Cardinal showed me, I think I finally finished with the development of the positional offset, which lets me start setting up the proper positional arrays. I don't have all the capabilities that I want just yet, but one step at a time! I need to make sure my changes work before making more updates."

Well, Rythin would do that, but he would always talk about how it was faster to find his errors all at once instead of fixing them one at a time. He could be silly like that.

"Ah... I see..." Alice's smile made it pretty clear that she didn't see, but that was okay. She might be a prodigy, but these were secret commands I was learning from Miss Cardinal.

"There's a rumor going around. Saying that traitor Integrity Knight is still alive."

I stopped walking. It took Alice a second to stop as well, but that wasn't the important thing. The only 'traitor Integrity Knight' around was Rythin, of course. The person talking was in the classroom we were about to pass, so I stood by the entrance just out of sight. Two boys were alone in the room, and both wore the uniform of trainee knights.

"I heard. He's supposed to be in a coma."

"I know we have to prepare for the Dark Territory to invade, but leaving that traitor in our midst? He defied the Church and should be executed for it!"

"Agreed. And what of that one rebel swordsman?"

"Yes, him as well. Who knows what Commander Bercouli is thinking?"

I frowned and walked down the hall. Alice followed me after a second of confusion. It wasn't safe here for Rythin, and even though my mission was to keep Alice safe I wouldn't let him get hurt either. For that, I had to move him somewhere. "Alice," I asked, "is there somewhere safe for Rythin? Somewhere I can take him where the Knights won't find him."

Alice looked at me and hesitated, then sighed. "...Rulid," she said. "My hometown. He should be safe there. It's at the very edge of Norlangarth - the End Mountains are a morning's walk away."

Her hometown... I knew she still held reservations about Rythin, but if she was letting me stay there, then she really was a nice girl. "Thank you," I told her. "It means a lot."

Kirito, of course, was taking a nap on the 80th floor. "...I'm coming with you," Kirito declared after we woke him up and I explained what I was going to do.

"Kirito, you have to-" Alice began.

"I'm not leaving Rythin," Kirito said. "He's my best friend, and it's my fault he's here to begin with."

Alice sighed. "If that's really how you feel..." She shook her head. "I will come with you."

"Wha- huh?" Kirito asked.

Alice put her hands on her hips and frowned at him. "You can't expect me to just send you off to Rulid without me, do you? After all, you promised I could go see Selka!"

"Crap, I forgot..."

I had a feeling that Alice wasn't saying all of her reasons, but I was a girl too! I wasn't going to share another maiden's secrets. I wasn't _Karma_ or _Rio_. Plus, having everyone in the same area made things really easy when it came to keeping track of Alice. The last thing Rythin had told me to do was keep her safe, after all. When he woke up, I was going to make sure nothing happened to her. "Great!" I clapped my hands. "Then we'll leave tonight."

The next few hours were spent making sure that I had everything I would need. Once night had fallen and the noise of the trainees disappeared, the four of us headed down to the dragon's roost. Thanks to Alice carrying Rythin and helping me saddle Red for the flight, we were in the air and flying away from the Central Cathedral without anyone noticing. Rythin was comfortably nestled in front of me while I held the reins, but I wasn't really trying to steer Red anywhere. Amayori was the one leading the way.

Come to think of it, we hadn't told Eugeo where we were going. There just wasn't any time for us to spare after all of our duties were finished. He was busy with Tiese in Centoria, so I'm sure he'll be fine. But, just to be safe, I'll remind Kirito to send him a message later.

...

We flew all night, and neither Red nor Amayori stopped once. By the time the dragons landed, the sun was coloring the sky behind the mountains pink and red. It would be too obvious to land in the middle of town, so we landed in the woods and walked the rest of the way. I tried to carry Rythin, I really did! But... I just wasn't strong enough. Alice carried him on her back once I gave up, and that was how we crossed the bridge into town - Alice in the lead, carrying Rythin, then me and Kirito. It only took a few hours to hike, so the sun was high in the sky.

I'd never been up here before. Rulid was really, really nice compared to everywhere in Wesdarath. Instead of being weird scraggly brown trees, everything was super lush and green. The buildings were made of a nice-looking yellow-white stone instead of the brown stone that all the buildings in Wesdarath used. Plus, the water was bright and sparkling in the light.

There was no guard when we walked over the bridge and passed through the waist-high stone wall that marked the town's outskirts, and I was almost worried that something had happened to the town -

"Hold on, you! Strangers aren't allowed in unless _I_ say so!" I turned to see a young man running out of the small house right by the edge of the bridge. It must be the guardhouse. He had short spiky hair, and as he approached us he put his hand on his sword.

"Yo, Jink," Kirito said casually, and the man stopped. "Been a while. You made it to guard captain, huh?"

"Gah... It's you," Jink said, then smirked. "What are you doing back? And where's Eugeo? You two give up on being Integrity Knights already? Sorry, but we don't need a woodcutter -"

"Kirito," Alice said. "Your friend is heavy." No he's not! Rythin is a perfectly acceptable weight. Don't be mean, Alice.

But she'd turned to face Kirito to complain, and that meant her face - which she'd previously concealed by wrapping a brown shawl around her golden hair - was visible to the guardsman. "By the gods... It can't be..." he stammered as he backed away.

"I am no stranger," the Integrity Knight said. "I am Alice. Summon Gasuft Zuberg at once. I want to speak with my father."

It didn't take long for the news of the returning travelers to spread throughout the village, and even before Mister Zuberg showed up a huge crowd of villagers arrived to see what the commotion was. They whispered to themselves and I did my best to ignore the unfriendly looks I was getting. "It feels strange to be back," Alice murmured mostly to herself. "It's both achingly familiar and not. Weird, huh?"

"Kinda, yeah," Kirito said.

"Hey, you're not supposed to agree with me."

I would have giggled, but there was a lot of tension in the air -

The tension I was feeling spiked abruptly and I turned to the left. The villagers there stepped to the side and a man walked forward through the ring of villagers. He had black hair and a neat mustache and goatee, and there was something familiar in his face. It must be Gasuft Zuberg, Alice's father. He had a stern expression on his face as he walked purposefully towards us, but when he caught sight of Alice's face he stopped and his jaw dropped.

It took him a second to gather himself, but his expression firmed. "Is that really... you?" he asked. "Alice?"

"...Yes," Alice replied with a short nod.

Gasuft pulled his shoulders back. "Well then, what are you doing here? Have you been pardoned for your crime?"

"I have," Alice said. The villagers' murmurs grew louder at that declaration, until Gasuft gestured for silence. "All the memories I had of my life here had been wiped away as punishment. The last several years have been spent in service to the Axiom Church, and the Pontifex herself graciously pardoned my crimes and returned my memories to me."

That was the same story that all of us agreed to. It even had the benefit of being accurate, thanks to Miss Cardinal's decisions.

Gasuft exhaled slowly, and then looked at her. "...Welcome home, Alice." The blonde girl smiled.

"Alice...?"

Alice turned towards the hesitant voice to see a young girl, her hair braided in a similar style to the knight's hair. The girl was wearing the robes of a Sister-in-training, and she stared at Alice, her mouth open.

"Sel...ka..." Alice said slowly. "Selka... Selka!"

"Alice!"

I couldn't tell which girl moved first, even with my kinetic vision. It didn't matter though, because Selka hugged Alice so tightly I was worried she'd never let go. "Alice, Alice!" Selka cried. "You're back!"

"I'm back, Selka," Alice whispered, patting her sister on the back. "I'm so sorry for leaving you. But I'm back now."

"Alice..."

Gasuft cleared his throat and turned to the black-haired boy while his daughters had their reunion. "And Kirito... where is Eugeo? Why have you returned alone?"

"Oh, Eugeo's busy in Centoria," Kirito said. "Being an Integrity Knight means he's got a lot of work to do. I'm sure he'll stop by if he can find the time, though." We never did tell Eugeo where we were going, though...

"Is that... so?" Gasuft looked like he had no idea how to react to Kirito. "Who is this, then?" Oh, he was looking at me now.

"Hello, sir," I said. "My name is Ritsu. I was hoping... you could allow me and my friend to stay in the village. We have nowhere else to go."

It had taken a little bit of discussion to sort out where everyone would stay, but in the end it was settled. Kirito would live in Eugeo's old cottage at the edge of town, and Alice and I would live in the woods outside town. Alice wasn't thrilled with not getting to live with her little sister, but her father said that some of the townsfolk might not be comfortable with a criminal, even a pardoned one, living in the village. The two other men - one fat, one thin, both with an air of self-importance - nodded. They must have convinced him, since Gasuft had only said something after they barged into the discussions.

Kirito and I didn't say anything because we'd never been charged with a crime, and so we weren't criminals. It's important to pay attention to specifics like that, you know.

* * *

**October 21, 380 HE**

The wind blew across the field of flowers below us, and played with the hem of my dress and my hair. It really was a beautiful sight. I wish I could share it with Rythin... I sighed as the thought crossed my mind. He would definitely wake up. I just had to stay by his side until then.

"Ritsu?" I looked over at the others. Selka stared at me in concern. Alice and Kirito, on the other hand, were bickering with each other about _something_. Kirito rolled his eyes and retorted to whatever she'd said, and Alice tossed her hair and shoved at his shoulder playfully.

I smiled. "It's nothing," I said. "I was just thinking about Rythin. Should we start heading back?"

"Sounds good to me," Kirito said. "I'm starting to get hungry."

Alice giggled. "You eat too much as it is," she said. "I don't know how you didn't eat through your entire budget when on the road with Eugeo."

"I'm not that bad!" Kirito yelped, and I smiled.

"Who was it who got in trouble a few months ago for sneaking into the kitchen to get some dumplings?" I asked and tapped a finger on my cheek like I'd actually forgotten. Kirito folded his arms and sighed, grumbling something under his breath.

As we walked, I noticed that Selka started to walk behind us a little bit, her hands folded in front of her. I wasn't the only one to notice, though, and before I said anything Alice stopped walking. "What is it, Selka?" she asked her little sister. "Something troubles you."

Selka ducked her head. "W-well... I-It's nothing serious, it's Mr. Barbossa. He asked if you could chop down another tree for him."

Alice smiled at her. "Honestly, that's why you're so quiet? You do know he and I have an agreement."

"Yes, but... How dare he!" After her outburst, Selka stared at the dirt path. "The hypocrite! He doesn't hesitate to ask you for help when they need it, but they won't even let you live in the village."

"It's all right, Selka," Alice said. She walked up to Selka and wrapped the girl in a tight hug for a second. "As long as I can have a place on the outskirts, that's enough for me. And, between myself and Kirito, we have enough money for everyone." I blushed a little bit. I grew what I could and hunted some of the beasts in the woods, but it wasn't enough for everything. Kirito was very kind to me and helped me out, but I still felt guilty about relying on his friendship with Rythin for so much. Alice gave me some meat as well, though I think she was trying to make Kirito happy more than anything...

"Yes, but...! Next year, my training will be done," Selka said with her hands raised, "and I was thinking, since I'll be earning a little money I could give you that! It's not much, but it's enough that you won't have to help _those_ people anymore. You and Kirito don't have to worry. I-I'll help!"

"Ah, I wish my little sister was as great as you are, Selka," Kirito said, and patted her head. "I'll look forward to it, then."

"I'm grateful, Selka," Alice said as she hugged her little sister again. "If you're set on that, then I won't try to stop you. But you don't need to push yourself. Just having you close by is all I could ever need. I'm happy just to have that."

Kirito and Alice, since they were so powerful, were able to cut down the trees that stood in the way of the town's expansion. Mr. Barbossa and Mr. Ridack, the two men Selka had mentioned, paid Alice and Kirito respectively to cut down one tree a month for them. I couldn't do something like that, sadly, so there was no way for me to make money.

"If you've got to go do your job, I understand," I told her. "I'll be fine to return on my own. I'll see you later, okay?"

"See you, Ritsu," Kirito said. Selka waved goodbye, and I started rolling Rythin's wheelchair back down the path.

"Ahh..." I stopped moving as soon as Rythin's wordless complaint started. One hand still clutched his dagger, but the other reached towards the black-haired boy standing next to Alice. "Ahhh..."

I giggled weakly. "You want to stay with Kirito for a little bit, huh? Well, it's a nice day out, so I don't mind. We can go watch Alice work." Kirito scratched his cheek, and Selka smiled. I blushed. It's like that awkward situation where you're talking to a friend online, then say goodnight so you can go to bed - but then you get distracted by something and stay up an hour later and see them still online when you're actually going to bed.

Selka waved goodbye as we parted ways with her and made our way to where Barbossa was waiting. Since we were on the outskirts of town, our path to the clearing took us through the fields of wheat. The dirt path we walked down was bumpy and uneven, and the wheels of Rythin's wheelchair bounced on the ground. It was made well enough that he was fine, though, and since Kirito was with us Rythin didn't complain. "The village has really grown," Alice mused. "All of the trees we've cleared, Kirito..."

"Yeah. Once Eugeo and I cut down the Gigas Cedar, Rulid has done great."

Before too much longer, the rhythmic sound of an axe hitting a tree filled the air. We approached the clearing, just in time to see a man take a swing with an axe. He hit the tree, but the impact didn't ring out with a pure sound and he staggered backwards from the recoil. The axe fell from his hands and clattered on the ground in front of him right after his butt hit the dirt.

"Why is this taking so long? In the time it takes you to cut this damn tree down, Ridack's men will have expanded his land 20 mels in all directions!"

"Good day, Mr. Barbossa," Alice said as we approached.

The man who had been shouting at the workers turned; his eyes were squinted in irritation until he saw who had just arrived, and then his face transformed into piggish glee. He was short and fat, and his clothes were definitely tailored for a man with a waist half his size - only one button on his tunic was fastened, and it was doing a heroic job of keeping the vest together.

"Oh ho ho! Alice, how good of you to come! And so quickly, too!"

"I heard you need my assistance," Alice said.

Barbossa chuckled and folded his arms behind his back. "Yes," he said, pointing to the tree in the center of the clearing. "It's that one, over there. We've been hacking away at it since yesterday morning. These damn platinum oak trees are tough. Why, ten grown men have put their backs into every swing, and they've barely made a scratch in it." The tree in question was the only one left in the clearing, and the others had all been chopped into logs. It was a tall tree with orange leaves. "So I asked for you."

Barbossa turned to Alice and clapped a fist in his palm. "I know our deal is for one tree a month," he said, "but this one's stubborn and I really need your help here, Alice."

"I shall do it," Alice said. "And happily. But just this once, understood?"

"Has Mr. Ridack been asking you to help too?" I whispered to Kirito.

Kirito shook his head. "Not yet. He's sticking to the agreement. I'm not so sure about this, though..."

Barbossa smiled widely. "Great! I knew I could count on you!" He extended his hand to shake.

Alice ignored him and turned to Kirito. "Can I borrow your sword, Kirito?" She'd already turned away so she missed it, but Barbossa sneered at her in irritation.

"Why don't you just bring your own?" Kirito asked her in return.

"Don't ask silly questions, just give me the Night Sky Sword," Alice shot back in return. I giggled at their arguing.

"Fine, fine, stop looking at me like that." Kirito drew his sword and handed it to Alice. The blonde accepted the heavy black blade with a winning smile and strode off to the platinum oak. "You're worse than Asuna..."

Sword in hand, Alice walked up to the tree and swiped her finger in the pattern to call the Stacia panel. It appeared in front of her and she studied it thoughtfully. After she found whatever she was looking for, she closed the panel and took a few steps back. Then, she _slammed_ her foot down and pulled the sword back.

"Come on!" one of the burly lumberjacks called out with a mean grin. "You think you're gonna cut down a platinum oak with a little old sword?"

"It'll snap in half!" his buddy shouted.

All of the watching men laughed, but Alice didn't give off a single sign that she'd heard them. Instead, she stared at the tree and -

In a burst, her foot slid forward and she swung the sword a single time. The force from her swing was so intense that a gust of wind blasted back towards us. I shielded my face and Kirito raised a forearm to cover his eyes. But, despite the force of Alice's swing, it _appeared_ as though the tree was untouched.

The men were silent, until one of them laughed. "Look at that. She missed!"

Alice straightened up in a fluid motion that started at her lower back and flowed up her spine. "You'd best move away from there," she said, and looked at her two hecklers.

It looked like she hadn't touched the tree. On the other hand, I had been programmed to keep track of a monster moving at Mach 20, and my kinetic vision was still powerful even as a real girl. I'd watched with interest as Alice made one of the cleanest cuts I'd ever seen.

"Why should we-"

An ominous creaking sound cut off the heckler's confused question before he finished it. We all looked up at the platinum oak as it creaked and rumbled, and slowly tipped over. With screams of fear, the two men who had been making fun of Alice scrambled away. When the tree landed on the ground in a cloud of dirt and dust, I winced. I hope they're okay...

"You could have warned them earlier," Kirito said as he approached Alice.

"I know," Alice replied. Kirito looked at her but didn't say anything as he accepted his Night Sky Sword and sheathed it again.

Barbossa had been stunned silent by Alice's feat of strength, his face blank with shock. Not literally blank like Korosensei always used to do, but still expressionless. "Splendid... Wonderful... Magnificent!" He slowly found his voice as he walked towards Alice and Kirito. "Your skill is unbelievable! No! Exceptional! It must have been granted by the gods!"

I giggled to myself. Irony really was funny, wasn't it? Alice, on the other hand, didn't seem impressed by the greed on Barbossa's face as he rubbed his hands together.

"Here me out now," the heavy man said. "I shall double your compensation, and instead of once a month, you'd work for me once a week - no, once a day! I know you could use the money."

"Thank you." I was super impressed! Alice didn't even blink at the horrible offer he'd just made her. "But the amount you're paying now is quite sufficient. In any event, Kirito has not received the same offer from Mr. Ridack and I would hate to unbalance things." Barbossa clenched his fists at her refusal, but Alice simply raised her hand, palm facing up. "My payment," she said flatly.

"O-Oh! Of course. Yes, right away!" Barbossa fiddled with the pouch on his belt and withdrew a single coin. He placed it in Alice's palm, and -

My hand snapped out and wrapped around a wrist. "Excuse me," I said politely to the woodcutter. "Would you mind explaining your actions?"

"H-Hey!" He tugged, trying to pull his wrist back. I wasn't as strong as Alice or Kirito, so I let go after a second. "What the hell was that for? I was just gonna borrow the dagger for a second!"

"Is that so?" I asked. He was one of the younger ones here, with light scruff on his chin. He was larger than me so I had to look up, but that didn't matter.

"We asked him," he said, and folded his arms. I looked over his shoulder where two other men were watching. "If he didn't want us touching it, he should have said something."

"He's right," his friend said. "We asked him nicely, and all he did was go 'Ah, ah', like a gibbering fool."

_'I want to kill him.'_

The flash of killing intent surged through me. It had been some time since I'd experienced something like that; after Korosensei passed away, I'd spent my time living and growing by exploring the Internet. There just wasn't any reason to develop my assassination techniques, although I knew Nagisa and some of the others kept themselves in good condition. My finely-honed weapon had become a little dull, I'm embarrassed to admit. But hearing them make fun of Rythin like that...

"Would you care to repeat that?" I asked. When I tilted my head to the side just a little, the man shivered without seeming to notice.

_'I want to kill him.'_

The man blanched like he'd just stared Death in the eyes, and then tugged his hand back to cradle it against his chest. "Fine, whatever! No need to look so angry." He staggered backwards, until he and his friends were a good distance from me and surrounded by the rest of the workers.

I let out a quiet sigh. A gloom seemed to hang over the men as they glared at me; I was perfectly able to ignore their unfriendly gazes, though. Something like that barely mattered to me at all. Were they mad at me because I refused to let them hurt my Rythin? Then _good_.

"...Shall we leave?" I asked Rythin quietly.

He didn't react, not even when Kirito said goodbye and left for his home. That was always good; there were some days where Rythin would cling to Kirito even through dinner. Kirito never said anything bad about eating with us, though.

"Ritsu?" The quiet question came from Alice as we walked side by side down the path through the fields. We lived a little bit apart, but the path out of the town was the same for both of us. "I just wished to say... I can barely stand it. The way the townsfolk act, how they refused us a home in my birth village simply because of the nobles' pride. We were rejected, and then they turn around and beg us for help."

She shook her head. "I can only imagine how hard it must be for you," she said. "We all fought for the sake of the people, and Rythin sacrificed so much... I will admit that he wasn't my favorite person, but to become a shell of his former self..."

We stopped in the crossroads that separated our homes, and Alice looked at me solemnly. "I know it's selfish of me," she said, "but the citizens of Rulid aren't all bad people. Please don't give up on them."

I blinked, and then smiled. "Don't worry, Alice. I won't hold their actions against them. And honestly, I don't mind living out in the woods that much. It brings back a lot of fond memories, after all."

"Thank you," Alice said, her shoulders relaxing.

* * *

The vegetables that I'd picked that morning were easy to chop up with my knife skills, and I made meatballs out of the game Alice had brought me. All of that went into a bean and meatball stew that... Well, it wasn't like I had a lot of practice making and tasting food, but it was edible. Rythin didn't complain as I scooped some of the stew in a small stew and blew on it before I carefully held it up to his mouth. He could eat, but it was hesitant, like a faint memory was driving him. He didn't react to it, but when the spoon entered his mouth he still chewed and swallowed without me.

I really wished I could make some of Rythin's favorites. If only I knew what those were! As much as he'd always been snacking back in E Class, he never seemed to enjoy anything more than anything else. And when I'd gone to ask Kirito for advice, the jerk had just shrugged and said that Rythin ate everything!

...I stopped puffing my cheeks out in irritation and sighed. Nobody was here to react to it, anyway.

"Eat slowly and chew carefully, okay?" I told Rythin as he swallowed the latest bite. "You can't gobble it down like an octopus. Heheheheh." Of course I laughed at my own joke, just like a dork.

After dinner was finished for both of us I went to the kitchen to wash up the simple bowls and utensils. After that, I sat down by the fire right next to Rythin and started chanting. "System call..." It was time for my nightly Sacred Art practice. It was a little childish to not want to fall behind Selka's progress, but I could be allowed a little bit of that, right?

The Sacred Power in the air had just about been exhausted when someone knocked on my door. I looked at Rythin, but he hadn't reacted at all. That meant it couldn't be a stranger, but who would be knocking on my door right before bedtime?

"...Alice?" I asked. I definitely didn't expect to see the blonde girl standing on the steps dressed in her Integrity Knight armor. "What are you doing here at this hour?"

"May I... come in?" the Integrity Knight asked, instead of answering me.

"Oh! Where are my manners. Come in, you must be freezing."

Alice sat down at the table, her back to the door. I sat facing her, right next to Rythin as he stared at the fire again. I prepared tea for both of us, but Alice only stared at the steaming surface. "I'm sorry to visit so late," she said after a long silence. "I'm not disturbing you, am I?"

"No, not at all! I was just wrapping up my practice for the night and then going to bed with Rythin, but it's not like staying up late once in a while is a bad thing." Alice smiled faintly at my comment, then went back to frowning. "What's wrong, Alice?"

The blonde folded her hands in front of her and sighed. "The Integrity Knights... Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-Two found me, earlier tonight."

"What?" I gasped.

"I heard Amayori trilling earlier, and when I went to see what was causing her distress, her brother Takiguri landed in front of me," Alice said. "The rider of her brother is Eldrie."

I glanced over at Rythin. Neither of us had noticed anything during dinner. "What did he want? How did he find us? There's no logistical way the Order could afford to send dragons all over just to track you down."

Alice shook her head. "To hear him say it, because he followed the bond between our souls." I couldn't help but giggle at the cheesy pickup line, and Alice sighed again. "I know. But he's been like that for years. I couldn't get him to stop calling me Lady Alice, even now!"

She shook her head. "That is besides the point. Eldrie admitted that he'd been tasked to search the northern border after they learned that goblins and orcs have been mobilizing there."

I sucked in a breath. Goblins and orcs, mobilizing right near the border of Rulid... "Are we going to be attacked?" I asked her.

Alice blinked. "Eldrie said Uncle Bercouli ordered them to collapse the caves to the south and west, and here in the north. When he came to make sure they don't try to dig them out again he spent a full day patrolling the perimeters but didn't spot any orcs or goblins."

"So how did he find you?"

"Well..." Alice sighed. "He and Takiguri encountered a red dragon, one that they recognized, in a cave that should have been filled with debris."

Oh. So that's where Red had decided to nest.

"That's how he knew you and Rythin were near, but when he mounted Takiguri to return, Takiguri began behaving strangely," Alice told me. "When he allowed his dragon free reign, they ended up landing right outside my house."

I sipped at my tea and made a face. It had cooled too much while we were talking, so I summoned a small Thermal element. "Now that he's found us, what does he want to do?"

"Honestly? Nothing," Alice said. I stared at her. "He did ask me to give up your location, but when I refused he accepted it out of respect for the bond we had as mentor and student. He is... a kind person, at heart," she said, staring into her cup of tea. "And I do treasure our connection. Still, you and Kirito are my friends, and I can't betray you like that."

I smiled at her. "Thank you, Alice. So then, this is goodbye?"

"Yes," she said. "I will be taking up my sword once more to defend the Human Empire. It is my duty as an Integrity Knight, after all. Would you... tell Kirito goodbye, for me? He's my childhood friend, but I can't ask him to choose between me and Rythin."

When she fidgeted with her hands, I had to avoid giggling. She might be a powerful Integrity Knight, but Alice was still a cute girl sometimes! "I'll tell him, don't worry," I said. "Thank you so much for everything you've done for us over these last few months."

Alice smiled and stood up from the table.

"Ahhh... Ahhh...!"

The second I heard Rythin's gasps, I turned to him to see what was going on. His eyes had widened and he'd gritted his teeth, practically trembling in place. His hand reached towards the door. "What's wrong?" I asked him. "Rythin?" He didn't react or calm down at all. Instead, he leaned forward and nearly fell from his chair before I caught him.

"Outside! Ritsu!" Alice called from the doorway. I looked up at the blonde girl, but she wasn't looking at me.

When I joined her, I realized what she was staring at. "Oh no...!" I gasped, hands covering my mouth.

Fire, barely visible over the trees, illuminated the night sky. Smoke filled the air and blotted out the stars.

"A fire... The Dark Territory is attacking!" Alice gasped. "Selkaaaaaa!"

* * *

**Welcome to the War of Underworld! We're moving fast, but that's what happens when this is the third book of the fourth book in the series.**

**Cardinal and Eugeo are alive! Hooray! Kirito isn't in a coma! Hooray! Rythin is currently unconscious and unable to react in any meaningful way to most things. Uh oh, that's not good. For those wondering _why_ that happened? That'll be addressed in the next chapter, so don't worry too much. (Also, don't worry - Eugeo is currently courting Tiese. He has a promise to keep to her, after all. He's noticed that Kirito disappeared, but more or less sighed and said, 'That's Kirito for you'. He was a lot less worried once Kirito sent him a letter explaining what was going on.)**

**It's an interesting thing to do here, to make sure that the butterflies affect everything properly. Kirito and Alice are working for Ridack and Barbossa respectively, and because she has her memories back Alice isn't _quite_ as abrasive to the villagers; but, on the other hand, she's still not welcome. As for why Ritsu and Rythin are staying outside of the town... Because 1) I like the parallels between E Class's campus and the woods here, and 2) because they can't exactly stay at the church. Ritsu needs to stay with him at all times, including sleeping in the same room (they only have one bed, they cuddle) and that's against the Taboo Index. Now that the Senator system is down, it doesn't have any REAL effect, but Sister Azalia wouldn't like it.**

**Also, don't tell me that government-owned software and hardware wouldn't be prone to failing at the slightest thought. I work on those systems. They're all 10+ years out of date and won't be updated for at least ten more, so I know what I'm talking about.**

**Many thanks to everyone that favorited, followed, or reviewed!**


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